A six-year-old boy in India’s Bihar state took a gun into school on Wednesday and shot a classmate, local media has reported. According to police, the 10-year-old survivor is being treated in hospital.
The incident occurred in the Supaul district of Bihar, one of the most economically depressed states of India. Police have reportedly taken the school principal into custody, temporarily sealed the building, and are now searching for shooter’s father, to ascertain how the child got hold of the firearm.
A local police official has said the boy appears to have believed the gun was a toy.
“The child had brought an illegal weapon to school in his school bag”, Pipin Kumar, a senior police official, told ABP news. “He was playing with it when it suddenly went off, hitting a student.”
The injured child has said there was no quarrel between him and the shooter before the incident.
“He took the gun out of his bag, I don’t know why he shot me”, he told the media. Police in the district have asked school authorities to ensure that all bags brought into class are regularly checked.
The incident has triggered unrest in the region, with the parents of some children staging a protest outside the school.
India has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and a person has to prove that there “exists a threat to life” to procure a firearm. India’s Arms Act Amendment Bill of 2019 recommends a prison term of seven to 14 years, as well as a fine, for the acquisition or possession of illegal firearms.
However, in some of its states, such as Bihar, trade in illegal firearms remains common. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) 2022 report, 4,035 illegal guns were seized by the police in Bihar in 2021 – the fourth highest figure in the country.
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