Pupil,11, shot in eye with gas pellet gun

Asheel Beekran, a Grade 4 pupil at Belvedere Primary School, was allegedly shot in the eye at close range by a Grade 9 Witteklip Secondary School pupil on Friday, Rising Sun Chatsworthreported.

Asheel’s parents, Ashwin and Aayshree Beekran, revealed the shocking experience that has left their only son severely traumatised.

“On Friday, I was sick and asked him to walk home with other children from our neighbourhood. He ran into the yard screaming with pain and told me that he had been shot with a pellet gun in his eye. When I moved his hand away from his eye, there was blood gushing out from his eye,” his distraught mother said.

Beekran was rushed to RK Khan Hospital immediately after the incident and was then transferred to McCords Hospital. He is currently in Albert Luthuli Hospital, where he underwent an operation to stop the bleeding in his eye.

Chatsworth police communications officer Cheryl Pillay said a case of attempted murder is being investigated.

In a separate incident, 17-year-old pupil died after being shot by a fellow pupil at a high school in Witbank, Mpumalanga.

Sanele Jan Mahlangu succumbed to his injuries a week after he had been shot in October last year. The pupil who shot Mahlangu was allegedly trying to show him he was in possession of a firearm when the gun went off. The 17-year-old pupil who shot Mahlangu was later arrested and appeared in the Witbank Magistrates’ Court.

– Caxton News Service