|
US-style campus violence hits India
Two Grade VIII school students kill classfellow who bullied them;
Incident scares parents across country
WSN Bureau
 GURGAON/ SAN
DIEGO: One of the paramount concerns of the Diaspora in the United
States has always been the security of their children on school and
college campuses. With gun laws too weak and rage a fact of life,
campus shoot outs scare any parent, and one of the things they
talked about everytime they made a visit to Punjab was how American
style gun shootings by some bully or bullied student doesn't happen
in India.
Well, the scare has a tendency to spread, and with violence in
cinema, on TV, in the newspapers and everyday life, it wasn't
shocking that soon it was to also make its appearance on school
campuses in India.
But when it happened, it did shock.
If San Diego saw last week the murder of Preet Rupinder Singh, a
24-year-old M.Tech student who hailed from Punjab's Ropar district,
and was shot dead while sitting in the store on Saturday afternoon
by unidentified assailants, Tuesday afternoon saw two class VIII
students, barely 13 and 14 years of age, pull out an American-made
revolver, and shoot dead their classmate who, they later said, used
to bully them. It happened in a Gurgaon school called Euro
International School.
Not surprisingly, Indian TV channels and
newspapers termed the shooting as "American style". Abhishek Tyagi,
the class VIII student, was shot five times from close range on his
forehead, chest and shoulder inside the campus. He died instantly.
The two boys who fired were widely named in the Indian newspapers'
Wednesday editions despite the law against naming juvenile
offenders. One of the boys had brought his father's licensed
foreign-made pistol and both boys took turns to shoot Abhishek. The
two later said Abhishek used to bully them at school because he was
of better built. Some five days ago, the school authorities had
helped settle a row among them but the two claimed Abhishek had
threatened to kill them. It seems they decided to act before
Abhishek could. The two called out Abhishek from the bus and shot
him with one first shooting him and later the other too firing. It
seems the father of one of the boys used to keep his revolver locked
in a TV trolley from where the kid got it a night before the
shooting and hid it in a school bathroom. He went to retrieve it and
came back and shot Abhishek.
At a time when rights activists are campaigning for tougher gun laws
to control the problem in the United States, and men like Michael
Moore have been raising a strong voice with documentary movies like
Bowling For Columbine, it is very worrysome that the campus shooting
has now come to haunt India, much like the massacre at Columbine in
1999 which was a wake-up call for parents in the United States.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, Preet Rupinder could possibly be even a
victim of a hate crime or racial crime. He had left for San Diego
only last year from Ropar. He had completed his schooling at Nangal,
and later did B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from IET, Bhaddal.
12 December, 2007
|
Read Also
