Daijiworld Media Network

Chennai, Jul 11: In his confession to the police, a retired lieutenant colonel Kandasamy Ramaraj said that he had shot at a few teenagers in a fit of rage for trespassing a defense complex to pluck fruits a week ago. Unfortunately, a 13-year-old named Dilshan got killed as a bullet hit him in the head.

Police arrested Ramaraj after he admitted that he had lost his cool on seeing the boys in the defense complex premises creating a racket and shot them from his first floor balcony.

A crime branch officer R Sekar said that Ramaraj had shot at the boys with an intention to threaten them but the single bullet had found the boy

The retired colonel who was an assistant engineer with the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Corps (EME) had taken a three-month extension to stay in the defense complex to wrap up his settlements after retirement.

The police team had been enquiring into license records of personal weapons of army personnel stationed in Chennai. They came up with Ramaraj’s application for the renewal of licence for his .30 rifle. Ramaraj had not disclosed the existence of this rifle to his office in Chennai.

Ramaraj had joined the army as a havaldar in the weapons maintenance division and had risen to become a lieutenant colonel. He has three sons with wife Rukmini.

He will be treated as a civilian while being prosecuted as the colonel was retired and there will be no further army enquiry against him, Sekar added.