MANDYA: A four-year-old boy was fatally shot by a 15-year-old while playing with a loaded firearm at a poultry farm in Dondemadahalli village, Nagamangala taluk, Sunday. The child’s mother also sustained injuries.
Nagamangala police said the teenager, who was visiting the farm with his parents, found a single-barrel breech-loading firearm hanging on a wall.
Mistaking it for a toy, he accidentally pulled the trigger while playing a game of police-robber. The bullet struck Abhishek in the stomach, fatally wounding him, and also injured his mother, Lipika, in the leg.
Abhishek’s parents, migrant labourers from Bengal, were employed at the poultry farm owned by Congress functionary Narasimhamurthy.
Boy booked for culpable homicide
The teenager, also from West Bengal, was visiting his relatives, who work in a neighboring farm in K Mallenahalli.
Abhishek was rushed to the hospital but declared dead. Lipika is undergoing treatment.
“We have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against the boy who triggered the gun and booked the poultry farm ownerunder sections of Arms Act for not keeping the licensed gun in a safe place. Both the accused-boy and license holder of the weapon were apprehended in connection with the incident,” a senior police officer said.
The boy has been sent to a juvenile home.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the presence of a loaded firearm on the farm.
Preliminary findings revealed that the weapon was licensed in the name of Narasimhamurthy, reportedly for farm security. Police are examining possible lapses in firearm safety regulations at the poultry farm.