Sixteen-year-old Suraj Kumar Das was employed as a domestic help by Satish Walia, a resident of Greater Kailash Enclave, a little over a month ago. There had been no trouble between them till the night of November 22, when the incident took place.

Pointing to his bandaged body, Suraj, who has a broken jaw, a fractured arm and a fractured thigh, says: ``Walia came home in the night along with three friends. They accused me of stealing Rs 7,000, which had been kept in the house a day earlier. When I said that I didn't know anything, they started beating me up.''

Suraj says that he was first beaten up in the kitchen and when he ran upstairs to the safety of his barsaati, they followed him there. ``They started beating me again and then someone pushed me down from the second floor,'' he says, hesitating to admit that he was hurled down. ``They beat me so badly that I became almost unconscious, I am not really sure,'' he said, with an eye on Walia's son, who was keeping vigil at the hospital.

But Suraj's uncle -- Bharat -- who brought him to Delhi three years ago and helped him find this job, claims: ``Suraj has admitted to us that they had beaten him and then hurled him down when he denied having stolen the money. They were all drunk and probably thought that they could get away with it. It was probably the neighbours who alerted the police after they heard the screams.''

Bharat added that they had requested Walia's son who had been coming to the hospital, for help, but he had told them that he would be able to do so only after his father was released from jail.

Walia's son refused to speak to the press.

Sudhir Yadav, DCP (South) said: ``We were alerted by an anonymous call, probably the neighbours. By the time the police reached there, Suraj had been admitted to a private hospital. We later moved him to Safdarjung.''Yadav added that a case of attempt to murder had been registered against the accused and that the police were looking for Walia's friends -- Chaman Sharma, G.K. Sharma and Vinod Arora.