Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha has criticized the Army for shooting down a 13 year old boy.
She rejected the Army’s contention that they mistook the boy for a possible terrorist, with the CM saying that the Army should have been able to distinguish between a boy and a terrorist.
“”The Army jawan (soldier) could have easily realised that the boy who tried to climb a tree was not an extremist or a terrorist. It is condemnable that the boy was shot,” she said in her official reaction to the incident.
The boy, Dilshan, was shot when he was trying to climb up a tree on the edge of an Army compound after climbing over the wall.
Army compounds are high security areas and civilians are banned, at the risk of being shot at, from trespassing into the area.
The episode has split experts, some of whom point out that it is difficult to distinguish between an ordinary civilian and a terrorist and Army-men guarding such compounds don’t always get the time to make the best judgement.
Tamil Nadu government also denied that any of its policemen were involvement in the incident.