Photo: VCG

Four suspects from Shangrao city, East China’s Jiangxi Province were detained for shooting a villager they mistook for a game animal last Friday, leading the wounded individual to collapse into a ditch and drown. Local police announced on Tuesday to launch a campaign cracking down on gun and explosive-related crimes across the region. 

According to a statement released by the police in Xinzhou district of Shangrao city, Jiangxi Province, the victim surnamed Wang was found dead in a drainage ditch around 11:23 pm on Friday night. 

A police investigation found that four villagers surnamed Xie, Wang, Chen and Wu were hunting for rabbits on Friday night with an air gun that Xie had kept privately, when they observed the movement of something beside the ditch. Xie shot at the victim whom he mistook as an animal, injuring Wang in the head causing him to collapse into a drainage ditch and die of drowning. 

Victim Wang was out for fishing in the river when he was shot, according to a report by The Paper. 

The autopsy results show that Wang’s trachea and bronchus contained pink foam and his stomach also contained 800 milliliters of liquid, which were in line with the characteristics of death caused by drowning, the police statement said. 

Local police have placed the four suspects under criminal detention and the case is under further investigation. 

The case soon aroused heated discussions online with many netizens questioning why these people went hunting or fishing late at night and from where they obtained their illegal firearm. 

The local public security organ will draw lessons from the case and launch a special campaign to crack down on gun and explosive-related crimes across the region to safeguard social security and stability with all-out effort, according to the police statement. 

Global Times