A five-year-old nursery student carried a pistol to his school and fired at a Class II student in Bihar’s Supaul district, injuring him and triggering panic in the institution and its neighbourhood on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at St. John Boarding School at Triveniganj, around 265km east of the state capital.

The injured student has been identified as Muhammad Asif. The bullet hit his left palm.

As the shot rang out, the locals rushed to the place of occurrence and also informed the police about the firing.

“The accused is a five-year-old student of nursery. He is said to have carried the weapon in his school bag. The injured boy studies in Class II in the same school and is around 10 years old. He is out of danger,” Supaul superintendent of police (SP) Shaishav Yadav told The Telegraph.

“The incident caused a stampede in the school and panic in the area. Our personnel are there and the situation is returning to normalcy. We have not been able to recover the pistol, but have seized a magazine.

“We are trying to identify and seize the weapon,” Shaishav said.

According to the police officials, there has also been negligence on the part of the school’s director and principal. They have taken the school’s director Santosh Kumar in custody and questioned him.

“I had reached the school around 8.30 in the morning. I kept my bag in the class and was playing. Suddenly one child came with a pistol and threatened to shoot me.
I caught the pistol but he fired the shot. The bullet hit me in my hand and I fell down,” the injured boy Asif told reporters.

He was taken to the Triveniganj sub-divisional hospital for treatment.

Asif added that he never had a fight with the accused kid, nor knew his name.

Meanwhile, the school authorities telephoned and informed Asif’s family that he had been injured. Several members of the family rushed to the school.

The accused kid’s parents were also called.

“The accused kid’s father, one Mukesh Kumar Yadav, came to the school. We were also there. He panicked after seeing the pistol kept on the table, grabbed it and ran away,” said Afroz Alam, an uncle of the injured student.

The police are conducting raids to nab Mukesh and considering their future course of action, as the accused is just five.

They are also probing the cause of the incident.