An Army jawan allegedly opened fire at a slum boy who had scaled a wall to pluck fruit inside the Army residential quarters behind Fort St. George here on Sunday.
The boy was hit by a bullet in his head and died soon after admission in the nearby government general hospital, according to the police.
The boy, K. Dilshan, 13, was the son of a carpenter living in nearby Indira Nagar slum and was employed in a plastic cover making company.
Along with a couple of friends, he had scaled the Army compound wall to pluck some almond fruit when a jawan allegedly shot him. The bullet went through his head and the boy collapsed in a pool of blood.
The other boys ran to inform Dilshan’s parents, who rushed to the place and removed the unconscious boy to the hospital, where he died soon afterwards.
“The boy died due to a penetrating injury to the skull, suspected to have been caused by a bullet,” said Dr V. Sunder, neuro head at the hospital.
But a senior Army officer in charge of administration, Brig Sashi Nair, insisted that the guards in the quarters carried no guns.
“In this colony, there are no armed guards. Whether a civilian has shot, whether an Army man has shot or whether a policeman has shot, I cannot comment at this stage. That (probe) has to be done by the police,” he told reporters at the site.
Irate residents of Indira Nagar blocked roads at Island Grounds, the War Memorial and the hospital, demonstrating against the senseless killing. Police resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the protesters at War Memorial when they stoned a passing Army truck and a police vehicle.
Defence sources in New Delhi said the Army has ordered an enquiry into the incident to identify who was responsible for the firing and whether any Army personnel had fired the bullet. Defence sources said there was no armed guard of the Army in the vicinity of the area. Sources said the Army was already fully cooperating with investigations into the incident by the Chennai Police and that a joint search was on.