Man charged over India shooting

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Indian police have charged a man in connection with the killing of a schoolboy allegedly by two of his fellow pupils.

The two boys have been remanded in custody after the incident at a school in Gurgaon near Delhi on Tuesday.

The father of one of the two boys has been charged with negligently keeping his licensed gun at home.

Police say they believe one of the boys managed to smuggle his father's gun into the school and hid it in a toilet.

They say the boys took turns to fire shots at 14-year-old Abhishek Tyagi at the privately-run Euro International school in the suburb of Gurgaon.

The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were remanded in juvenile custody for 14 days by a judge on Wednesday.

Police have so far been unable to trace the parents of the boys.

Rare

But the parents of one of the boys in detention spoke openly in front of cameras on Indian news channels, and said they did not believe that their son could be involved in the killing.

"Why were not we informed that our son has been arrested," said the mother of the boy.

<a class="" href="/1/hi/world/south_asia/7140267.stm">Children recall shooting horror</a>

Senior Gurgaon police official Satish Balan told the BBC that the police had been questioning the two boys at a juvenile observation home.

"They keep telling us that Abhishek used to harass them and beat them up," he said.

But several parents told the BBC privately that the two boys who allegedly killed Abhishek had recently threatened him after a fight, and even sped around the school in a motorcycle a few days ago.

Incidents of gun crime at schools and colleges in India are very rare.

The school, which has 550 students and 38 teachers, has said it could not have foreseen what happened.

It has been closed for two days following Tuesday's fatal shooting.