2-yr-old dies as man shoots by 'mistake'

Aiming at the boy’s father, a man mistakenly shot dead a two-year-old on Thursday night in west Delhi’s Madipur area.  The accused Vinod is absconding, but an accomplice in the crime has been arrested, said police.

Victim Yash’s mother, Aarti, and Vinod’s wife are sisters. Vinod, who is a driver, had visited the house of Aarti and her husband Lalit around 8 pm.

“Vinod came to our house and asked my husband to accompany him to have liquor. My husband turned him down, over which Vinod taunted him whether he was a slave of his wife. After saying that, he went away,” said Aarti.

“After two hours, Vinod came back with a person on his bike. He stopped his bike in front of our house, and saw through the window that my husband was playing with Yash. He was drunk and took out his pistol and fired towards my husband. The bullet, however, struck the back of my son’s head,” Aarti added.

Aarti took hers injured son to Maharaja Agrasen Hospital, where the doctors tried their best to save him. But he succumbed to his injury while being operated upon. The child was murmuring while in pain.

“I took him in an auto to Agrasen hospital. At the hospital, he was alive. No sound was coming from his mouth but I could feel his heartbeat.


“I was constantly pressing his chest to help him breathe. After that, doctors took him over and put an oxygen mask over his mouth. He was then taken to the operation theatre, from where he never returned alive,” said Yash’s mother.

Old grudge

According to her, Vinod had a grudge against her husband, who had slapped him a year back over some issue. On Wednesday, one of Vinod’s relatives had invited Lalit and Aarti for a wedding function where he too was there.

Angry over Aarti and Lalit’s presence at a wedding of his relative, Vinod came to Lalit’s house the next day to talk it over liquor.

“Earlier also he had come over to our house several times. He used to come here after drinking heavily and would create ruckus on the pretext of merrymaking. His sole motive used to be to embarrass us, and I had myself rebuked him for his behaviour several times.
“However, he would still return to bother us. We never thought that he was hiding such malice against us,” Aarti said. Police are questioning Vinod’s accomplice. Raids at his possible hideouts are on.