Mangoes Seem Dearer Than A Boy's Life

Chennai, June 3: Mangoes seemed to be dearer than a human life for Frank Elias, a 65-year-old retired pilot, as he shot at a 12-year-old boy with an air rifle for trying to pluck mangoes in his garden on Saturday evening.
E Manikandan, son of a security guard, is writhing in pain at the Government Royapettah Hospital, rueing that plucking mangoes had invited a ‘bullet' to his chest.

‘‘I fell down with pain after being shot at and woke up here in the hospital,'' he said as his mother Shanti, a flower seller, recalled with horror how she had fainted on seeing him lying in a pool of blood outside the house of Elias at Raja Srinivasan Nagar in Tiruvanmiyur.

The Class VII student of a Corporation school and resident of Singaravelan Nagar in the same locality had apparently gone out to play with his friends without realising that he would land in hospital.

When policemen from the Tiruvanmiyur station reached Elias's house after receiving a complaint from Manikandan's family, his wife, Jessica, claimed he was away in Andhra Pradesh. However, the police tracked him down to the busy Tiruvanmiyur bus depot by keeping a tab on his mobile phone reception signal.

Admitting to pulling the trigger, Elias allegedly told the police that he was provoked as the boy taunted him by removing his trousers, when questioned about plucking mangoes.

According to police, Elias, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, was an Indian Airlines pilot for 20 years. Subsequently, he was with the Jet Airways and the Air Deccan before retiring last December.

He is now in judicial custody for ‘‘attempt to murder.'' Interestingly, the police, quoting Elias' family members, said he had got the air rifle as a birthday gift from his father 51 years ago. He often used it to shoot at balloons fixed on a board at home.,

Mangoes seem dearer than a boy's life
Published Date: 6/4/2007  -  (NIE)

Serena Josephine M & A Selvaraj