Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) The Indian Army said Monday it will conduct its own probe into the killing of a teenager after he trespassed into a military residential area in Chennai, even as it cooperates with the Tamil Nadu Police enquiry into the incident.

“We are extending full cooperation to the civil administration in its investigation into the incident to come to the truth. We will also conduct our own inquiry into the incident,” the army vice chief, Lt. Gen. A.S. Lamba, told reporters here when asked about the incident.

Lamba also contended that there was no armed guard in the military residential area and that the incident needed to be probed to find out the truth about the killing.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony to flag-in a Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering mountaineering, hill cycling, and road expedition to Mount Kamet in the Garhwal hills.

A 13-year-old boy was seriously injured when he was allegedly shot by a soldier at a residential area near Island Grounds, an important military landmark in the heart of the city, Chennai police said Sunday.

The boy, Dilshan, reportedly had a entry-and-exit bullet wound on his head and was rushed to a government hospital, but succumbed to his injuries.

The death of the boy, who lived in Indira Nagar near Island Grounds, angered the residents of the locality, leading to a protest by them near the army’s residential quarters and the government hospital.

The incident drew the ire of the state government, with chief minister J. Jayalalithaa issuing a statement that the army should hand over the soldier, who allegedly caused the teenager’s death, to the state police.

“This is unacceptable. the security personnel could have easily known this boy is not a terrorist or a militant,” Jayalalithaa said.

The army authorities in Chennai had on Sunday said that there were no armed sentries in their residential complex, with security outsourced to a private agency and their personnel were unarmed.