PATNA: In a shocking incident of murder, a 10-year-old boy was shot dead in Bihar's Khagaria district merely for picking a few mangoes from the ground at an orchard, police said on Friday. The victim, Satyam Kumar, a student of standard IV at a local school, received a bullet on his head and fell in a pool of blood on the spot.
The incident, which took place at Shergarh village under Gogri police station on Thursday, sparked outrage and protests in the area. A few of Satyam's friends, who were playing with him near the mango orchard just before the incident, alerted the local people, who rushed the profusely bleeding boy to a nearby hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
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Police said initial investigations have found that it was the orchard owner, Ramashish Yadav, a resident of the same village, who had shot the boy dead in a fit of rage. According to Satyam's friends, when he was picking a few mangoes lying on the ground in the orchard, Yadav asked him to drop the mangoes and leave.
When Satyam did not do that, Yadav shot at him from close range, they said. "The boy was shot from an unlicensed pistol. The accused, Ramashish Yadav, and his family members are absconding. Raids are being conducted to arrest him. A probe is on," said Deepak Kumar, the SHO of Gogri police station. An FIR was registered against Yadav for murder and violation of provisions of the Arms Act, said SDPO Pramod Kumar Jha.
Police are trying to ascertain how Yadav came to own the pistol, he added. "My son was killed just because he picked a few mangoes from the ground. The killer should get the severest punishment," said Satyam's father Makuni Yadav, 38, a marginal farmer. He denied that there was any enmity between him and the accused. The Opposition RJD and Congress stepped up their attacks on the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government for the rise in criminal incidents in Bihar. "There is lawlessness across the state as the state government has shifted its focus from the priority areas," said RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly.