Retd Lt Colonel confesses to killing Dilshan,remanded to custody

A special court was in Chennai on Sunday remanded to 15-day judicial custody a retired senior army officer who was arrested for allegedly killing a 13-year-old boy at army premises.

Lt Col Kandaswamy Ramraj,charged under section 302 of IPC (relating to murder) was produced before the Georgetown Special Court and remanded to 15-day judicial custody,sources said.

Early in the day,the Tamil Nadu Police crime branch which was investigating the case,said it had arrested Ramraj for killing the boy last Sunday when he had entered the army premises to pluck almonds.

The weapon — an imported 0.3mm rifle used by the 58-year-old suspect and the car he used were also seized by the police,CB(CID) ADGP R Sekar had said.

Dilshan,residing in the Indira Gandhi Nagar locality adjacent to the army quarters in the Island Grounds locality,fell victim to a mysterious bullet when he tried to pluck almond fruit from the army residential area. The victim’s family had alleged he was shot by an Army personnel.

The postmortem report had earlier established that a bullet injury had killed Dilshan when he scaled the Army campus.

An army officer in the rank of Lt Colonel and some others were questioned in the past few days in connection with incident.

Condemning the incident,Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had said the teenager was killed by an army jawan and had written to the General Officer Command requesting that the culprit be handed over to the state police.

Earlier in the day,the Tamil Nadu CB-CID had announced that it had cracked the case with the arrest of a retired Army officer who confessed to his involvement in the incident.

The special team of the Crime Branch of CID police arrested the 58-year old Lt. Col (Retd) Kandaswamy Ramraj and recovered the 0.3 mm rifle used to fire at Dilshan,who fell to the bullet when he trespassed into the army residential quarters to pluck almond fruits on Sunday last.

Briefing reporters on the breakthrough,CB-CID Additional DGP R Sekar,said Ramraj,who retired in April and was on extension,”has come out with the confession” and told police that he shot at Dilshan after getting annoyed over the boys from a nearby locality frequenting the campus to pluck almond.