The incident occurred in last July when Dilshan along with his friends trespassed into the Officers’ Enclave on a Sunday afternoon to pluck almonds from a tree inside the Army campus.
A fast track court in Chennai on Friday sentenced Kandaswamy Ramaraj (59), a retired lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army to life imprisonment for murdering Dilshan, a 13-year-old boy last year. Ramaraj was also asked to pay Rs 50,000 as fine.
The incident occurred in last July when Dilshan along with his friends trespassed into the Officers’ Enclave on a Sunday afternoon to pluck almonds from a tree inside the Army campus. An irritated Ramaraj took his assault rifle and shot at the boy who fell down from the tree and later succumbed to the injury caused by the bullet. The army man threw the assault rifle into the nearby Cooum River to destroy all evidence.
The killing of the boy sent shock waves across the State and the image of the Army took a beating. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa sent a strongly –worded letter to the army authorities condemning the incident and sought immediate handing over of the culprit to the police. A week later Ramaraj was arrested by the Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CBCID) team of the Chennai Police.
The army man admitted that it was he who killed the boy. He told the investigating team that he was irritated with frequent trespasses by the boys hailing from a labour camp opposite the army enclave.
Though the CBCID team grilled all the people present at the Officers Enclave including Ramaraj, initially they could not make much breakthrough . “A systematic style of investigation led us to Ramaraj who initially denied any role in the shoot out. But the ballistic experts identified the kind of rifle with which Dilshan was killed. We found out that Ramaraj has been issued such a rifle in 2004 for his personal safety. But this gun’s license had expired in 2008 and he had submitted an application for renewing the same,” R Sekhar, chief, CBCID, had told reporters after the arrest.
The CBCID boss also said that Ramaraj broke down when he was confronted with details like his application for renewing the license of the rifle. Ramaraj had retired from the Indian Army in April 2011 and he was in the process of finalizing his accounts and shifting his residence to his hometown Madurai.
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