Police registered a case against a man in Palghar district of Maharashtra on Thursday on the charge of severely beating a 13-year-old boy, whom he illegally employed as his domestic help, for coming late to work, an official said.

The incident occurred on Monday at Khamloli village in the district, he said.

The accused, Rajendra Sitaram Patil, was booked under the Child Labour (Prohibition And Regulation) Act, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the police said.

Apart from this, he was also booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), they said.

"The victim boy and the accused live in the same village. Patil had employed the minor to look after his cattle at his house. The teenage boy had lost his mother several years back, while his father is a tuberculosis patient," an official of Manor police station said.

The boy lived at the house of the accused, and was paid a salary of Rs 1,100 per month, he said.

"On September 25, the boy went out in the morning to have darshan of Ganesh idols in the village. While returning to the employer's house, he saw some boys playing somewhere and joined them. Due to this, he reached the workplace late," he added.

Angry with him for being late to work, Patil severely thrashed the boy and abused him. The boy went to his father and narrated the incident to him, the police official said.

The victim's father along with some villagers then went to Patil's house to question him about why he beat his son. But the accused abused them as well. The group then approached the police and the boy's father lodged a complaint with the police, they said.

The accused has not been arrested so far and investigation into the case is on," the police official said.

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