Gurgaon: He was a 14-year-old without remorse as he stood close to the body of a classmate he had just gunned down and said matter-of-factly, "I killed him".
The day after the shooting in an elite school in Gurgaon killed a Class 8 boy on Wednesday, it was too late to do anything but recount the chilling details.
Anita Solanki, vice principal of the upscale Euro International School in Delhi's suburb, recalled with a shudder how two Class 8 students pumped bullet after bullet into their classmate Abhishek Tyagi, who allegedly bullied them mercilessly.
She said she was sitting her office just a couple of rooms away from the site of the shooting when two students ran in screaming that the schoolboy had opened fire on Abhishek, who was lying in a pool of blood.
"I first ignored it but after seeing their pale faces. I ran to the staircase," Solanki told IANS, as the entire country reeled with shock at the coldly planned killing that was more reminiscent of a US school shootout.
She reached to see Abhishek on the floor and the killer schoolboy standing close.
"When I questioned him what had happened, he felt no fear of his gruesome act and nonchalantly replied, 'I killed him'," she added.
He offered a reason too, saying that Abhishek often bullied him and had even threatened to kill him and his friend, so they took revenge.
The sequence of events is still hazy, but it appears that five bullets were fired from the .32 gun.
First, one pumped four bullets into Abhishek; he then passed the gun on to his friend who finished the job and fired a fifth bullet.
At the end, Abhishek lay sprawled in the ground with two bullet wounds in his chest and one in the forehead.
While Solanki and the staff rushed Abhishek to a nearby hospital, the killer schoolboys whose identities are now being withheld here because they are juveniles, were caught.
Teachers caught the first schoolboy and locked him in a classroom. The second boy, who had already left the class and was sitting in the bus, was also subsequently nabbed and police and the school chairperson Satyavir Yadav informed.
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The school had just been getting over for the day and most children were already in buses ready to go home. Fourteen-year-old Abhishek, too, was on his way out and had climbed down the stairs to the ground floor when he was attacked.
The day after, the clues to what may have led to the horrific attack lay scattered around in the three-floored eerily silent school that is closed for two days.
On a ground floor classroom lay an unclaimed bag belonging to the first boy who shot Abhishek. It was stuffed with books and had messages like 'Bad Boy' and 'Ziddi (stubborn) Boy' scrawled in blue ink.
But the school authorities had obviously not woken up to the 'bad boy' and what he intended to do, despite taking other precautions.
According to Solanki, Abhishek was on his way to a classroom for compulsory attendance to ensure that all children board the right bus. But the killer boys did not go for their attendance and waited near the staircase to lay siege knowing very well that other children might be in the bus.
The only silver lining in the dark clouds of violence - that nobody else got hurt.
"When the duo opened fire, nearly 10-15 students ran helter-skelter to save their lives. Thank god, a bigger tragedy was averted," said school chairperson Satyavir Yadav.
Police add that the conspiracy had been hatched four days ago when the first boy stole his father's licensed revolver on Tuesday morning and smuggled it to school after hiding it in his socks. He then went to first floor toilet and hid it near a window, taking it out just minutes before the incident.
The boys have been sent to 14 days judicial custody to a juvenile home in Sonepat district in Haryana. The school is planning to deploy more security guards. And the silence of death has fallen upon Abhishek's home.
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