Patna, Sept. 6: In the cradle of gangsters, kids learn to pull the trigger early.

A 12-year-old boy in Mokama, about 90km east of Patna, was today shot dead, allegedly by schoolmates a few years older than him following an altercation over an innocuous game of cricket.

Guddu Kumar, a Class IV student at the government-run Barahpur Middle School, was killed in cold blood at his house around 10.30am.

The assailant, who the police suspect could be a minor studying in the same school, fired the bullet through a hole in the boundary wall of the house to avoid detection.

Guddu’s father Jay Ram Mahto has named six persons as accused in his FIR, of whom three are students aged between 14 and 18. The six persons named are Jagdish Mahto, his son Vicky Kumar, Umesh Mahto, his son Deepak Kumar, Upendra Mahto and his son Sonu Kumar. Jagdish, Umesh and Upendra are neighbours of Jay Ram.

“Guddu left home for school around 9.30am. But he came back as he had forgotten his pen at home. The assailants were watching Guddu closely. One of them fired at Guddu from the hole in the building leading to his instant death,” Jay Ram told the police.

The boy was rushed to Nazrath hospital where he was declared brought dead. “The bullet had hit his throat which proved fatal,” said an official at the Mokama police station.

The murder had its genesis last evening when Guddu had a tiff with some children, including Vicky, during a cricket match. Jay Ram told the police that Jagdish had then threatened Guddu with dire consequences.

Mokama station house officer Sona Lal Singh said the role of the minor boys in the murder was being probed. “It is being ascertained from where the minor children, if they are involved in the killing, procured the weapon,” he said.

A local resident said illegal firearms of all sorts were available in abundance at Mokama, which had once acquired the dubious distinction of being the “crime capital of Bihar”.

The area is notorious for giving birth to a number of dreaded gangsters such as Ashok Samrat, Nata Singh, Naga Singh, Surajbhan Singh alias Suraj Singh (a former MP). “It was Ashok Samrat, who used AK-47s for the first time in the killing of Chandeshwar Singh, an underworld don of Muzaffarpur, in the early 90s,” a resident said.