Ex-Army officer gets life term for city boy’s murder

CHENNAI: Retired Army officer K Ramaraj was on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 60,000 for the murder of K Dilson, a 13-year-old boy he killed in a fit of rage in the officers’ enclave in the city last year.
Passing the order, R Radha, additional sessions judge, fast track court-V, directed that Rs 50,000 be paid to the boy’s mother, K Kalaivani, as compensation.The former lieutenant colonel continued to maintain that he was innocent.
The incident occurred on July 3, 2011, when the boy scaled the wall and entered the Old Fort Glacis Army Officers’ Enclave, near the Secretariat, with two of his friends to pick almonds. The prosecution argued that Ramaraj, who retired from service that year but was allowed to stay in the complex for three more months, was infuriated when he saw the boys as he had warned them on several occasions earlier.
When he saw Dilson in the complex, Ramaraj opened fire from his 0.30 rifle in a fit of rage.
He was standing on his balcony on the northern side of the compound about 100 feet away, the prosecution said. One of the bullets hit Dilshan on the head, killing him. A police complaint was lodged, and the investigation was subsequently handed over to the CB-CID.
After conducting inquiries on the campus, CB-CID officials arrested Ramaraj on July 10 and filed a chargesheet against him at the Saidapet metropolitan magistrate court in August.
I was made a scapegoat: Ramaraj
Standing in the packed courtroom, Lt Col (retd) K Ramaraj appeared unmoved when the judge told him the charges of murder levelled against him had been proved. “Do you have anything to say about the sentence?” Passing up the opportunity to ask for a lighter punishment, he only said, “I’m innocent.”
After the order was read out, the 59-year-old made his way out of the hall and looked out of the window. There were no phone calls, no outbursts of emotion.
He said, calmly, “I did not do it. Why should I shoot a boy after serving in the Army for 40 years? I am being targeted because I am retired and now a civilian. If I was still serving in the Army, the police would not be able to touch me. They wanted to close the case quickly, and hence I am being made a scapegoat.”
Asked if his family was in court, he said, “They did not come.” Then, choking, he said, “I have three sons. They are all serving officers in the Army.” The CB-CID report said Ramaraj was allotted the 0.30 Springfield NSP rifle in 2004. Though the licence expired on March 12, 2008, he applied for a renewal only in November 2010. The new licence was yet to come through when the shooting occurred in July, 2011.
Passing orders, the judge observed that though Ramaraj had said in his application for renewal of licence that “the weapon was in safe custody in the armoury”, he had not mentioned the time of deposit or any details. Verifying the private arms’ registration in all its armouries, Army authorities found that no weapon belonging to Ramaraj was deposited or withdrawn from any armouries. “It leads to proximity of the accused with the commission of crime and the hypothesis of guilt,” the order said.
Medical and documentary evidence as well as recoveries from the crime scene established that the shot was fired from Ramaraj's rifle . But, when asked about the rifle’s whereabouts during the trial, he said he did not know about it.
Since this was within the “exclusive knowledge of the accused” and as the case rested on circumstantial evidence, this omission supplied the missing link connecting him with the crime.
Along with being convicted on charges of murder, he was also found guilty of destroying evidence and for contravening provisions of the Indian Arms Act, 1959, by using firearms without a valid licence. “I will appeal against it. When there is room in the law for it, why would I not take it up?” Ramaraj said, before being led away.