In a sensational twist to the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy on Sunday, sources have revealed that an inebriated senior Army officer shot the youngster dead in cold blood.
The Army has repeatedly refuted charges that Dilshan was shot by a jawan, as the boy’s family alleged.
Dilshan had on Sunday entered the Army premises at Old Fort Glacis Officers’ Enclave, Island Grounds, to pluck almonds when he was shot, police sources said.
“The Army officer who opened fire at Dilshan locked himself in a toilet immediately after the incident and was later cajoled to come out by his colleagues who feared that he was going to commit suicide,” a police source said. “The officer was later spirited away in a private car to Bengaluru.”
Senior Army officials are reportedly looking for a way to extricate the officer and other middle-level officers in Chennai responsible for the cover-up from a situation that threatens to snowball into a major controversy and resurrect criticism of excesses by the armed forces.
CB-CID investigating officers said they are questioning some Army officials.
Sources said the investigators have identified the killer but are waiting for the Army to hand him over to the probe agency.
Dilshan’s mother Kalaivani, a resident of Indira Nagar Colony near the Army enclave, on Tuesday told reporters that the man who killed her son should meet the same end.
“He should not be put in prison, but shot like he shot my son,” a distraught Kalaivani said. The Army is likely to soon order a Court of Inquiry to ascertain the circumstances in which a boy was killed in firing from an Army compound at Fort St. George.