Man arrested for shooting boy while trying to kill mongoose

A 48-year-old man was arrested a week after a bullet that he had fired to kill a mongoose hit a 12-year-old boy in western Bengaluru.

Sonnenahalli resident Kumara, a cooking caterer by profession, owns a licensed single barrel gun. On June 9, around 4.30 pm, when he tried to shoot a mongoose near his house, the bullet hit the boy named Asif, who was playing at a nearby vacant plot along with friends.

The boy was rushed to hospital where he underwent surgery for removing the bullet from the abdomen. He is now out of danger.

Police said Kumara panicked after seeing the boy collapse. He handed the gun to his father and ran away. Police, however, arrested him on Saturday and booked him for attempted murder and under the Arms Act. They subjected him to a Covid-19 test. A court sent him to jail after his report came back negative, police added.

Asif told the police that he thought Kumara shot him because he had seen him with the gun. But according to Kumara, he was trying to kill the mongoose because it was eating the eggs of his chicken. The gun misfired before he could spot the mongoose, he told the police.