An Indian teenager has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while posing for a selfie with his father’s gun.
Ramandeep Singh, 15, was posing for a photograph with his elder sister on Friday night when he pulled the gun’s trigger instead of clicking the photograph.
He was taken to a private hospital in Ludhiana, Punjab after neighbours heard the gunshot and alerted his parents, who were not home at the time. He succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.
The gun, a .32-calibre pistol licensed to Ramandeep’s father Gurkirpal Singh, was usually kept in a wardrobe in the house, according to police chief Manoj Kumar.
“The boy’s father and family said that he was trying to take a selfie with his gun,” said Mr Kumar.
The incident is the latest of several deaths in India to result from taking a selfie, a craze that has been fuelled by Bollywood celebrities and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.
Around half of the 27 recorded deaths worldwide resulting from self-taken photographs took place in India last year.
So far this year, a man in Kerala was gored by an irate elephant while posing for a selfie at a temple in April, and a teenager in Chennai was killed by a train after posing near railway tracks.
Indians have also been killed falling out of boats, off cliffs and into canals in recent months.
Mumbai has set up 16 “no selfie zones” at popular but dangerous locations after a tragic accident claimed two lives in January.
India overtook the US this year to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with 220 million users, behind only China.
India’s gun laws allow citizens to buy firearms with a government-issued licence, although the process is expensive and difficult. There are six million registered guns in India, and up to an estimated 40 million illegal firearms.
Source: The Telegraph
