India: Armed and dangerous — Update

India's battle with gun violence hit another milestone over the weekend, as a group of schoolboys allegedly shot and killed a classmate in Rohtak, Haryana.

Though the alleged incident took place at a religious function, rather than on school grounds, the age of the victim and suspects recalls India's first school shooting, the 2007 killing of 14-year-old Abishek Tiagi in nearby Gurgaon.

In the latest incident, a 15-year-old Class 10 student was allegedly shot dead by four classmates during a religious function in Meham, a town about 50 miles from New Delhi, early on Sunday, CNN/IBN quotes local police as saying. 

As GlobalPost reported in India: Armed and Dangerous, schoolyard gunplay remains rare around here. But thanks to a strange coincidence of Americanization and traditional machismo brought on by rapid economic growth, India has developed a gun obsession that makes Charlton Heston look like Gandhi.

Police say there has been an alarming rise in gun violence in and around Delhi over the past few years as weapons proliferate. Illegal factories have become so common that country-made guns are sold like candy in local bazaars. And as more and more people seek to obtain legal, licensed guns, an organization modeled on America's National Rifle Association has emerged with the mission to ensure every Indian the right to bear arms.