MUMBAI, Dec 1(Mumbai): A 17-year-old boy died after being mercilessly beaten up by the father of his girlfriend at the latter's Oshiwara house. The girl fled the home after the incident and the police are trying to trace her.

The girl's father has been arrested for murder. The incident took place on Monday when the boy, Saddam Shaikh, went to the residence of his 15-year-old girlfriend. The girl helped the boy sneak into her room on the mezzanine floor through a window, while her parents were watching television on the ground floor.

A little later, the girl's mother was surprised to find the lights on in her daughter's room so late in the night. She went up to her room and found the door locked. She knocked on her door repeatedly, but there was no answer.

The mother then forcibly entered the room and was shocked to find Saddam there. She then called out to her husband, Amir, who works as a taxi driver. An enraged Amir beat Saddam black and blue till the boy fell unconscious. After tying Saddam to a chair, Amir asked his wife to approach the Oshiwara cops and tell them that they had caught a thief.

The police rushed to the couple's house and found a badly bruised Saddam. They rushed the boy to Cooper Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday.

The police found loopholes in Amir's story and suspected that something was amiss. They grilled him and his wife. Amir broke down and told the cops that he lost his cool when he found the boy inside his daughter's bedroom and beat him up. Saddam was a school dropout and had met the girl through a friend.