The residents of Sultapur Village in Mehrauli, where Charanjit and his family have resided over the past nine years, give a glowing account of the boy's behaviour.

Twenty-three-year-old Swarup, who played cricket with Charanjit, says, ``We played together on holidays, as we didn't get time on other days.'' It seems Charanjit and his younger brother, known locally as Raju and Goga, were rather reserved and kept largely to themselves. ``We didn't even know he was called Charanjit,'' says Parvinder Kaur, another neighbour. The fact that the brothers attended the Army Public School, whereas the other children of the rather impoverished village, comprising mostly of dingy houses with peeling paint, went to local schools, probably accounts for the lack of contact.

``I thought him rather sharif,'' says 18-year-old Arun Kumar. ``He didn't talk or mix around much.'' Chandravati, a young mother of two, who lives in a house adjoining the field in which Charanjit played, agrees: ``He was well behaved and if we scolded him, he went away quietly,'' she says. ``He used to play with my daughters, Rekha (5) and Pooja (3), and I've never known him to fight''.