Man mistakes 12 year-old son for monkey, shoots him dead

A farmer in southern Nepal mistook his son for a monkey trying to steal his crops and shot the 12-year-old dead, reports NDTV.
The boy had been climbing a tree to chase away macaques that had become a nuisance to the family but his 55-year-old father spotted the boy and opened fire, wrongly believing him to be one of the animals.

The son was hiding in a tree at their farm to chase away monkeys that used to come searching for food in the maize field. The son died on the spot. Preliminary investigation shows that the father was unaware that his son had gone to the maize field to chase the monkeys.

The three species of monkey native to Nepal are considered sacred and farmers normally try to scare them away from their crops without injuring the animals.

"I realized my mistake only when my son fell down and got stuck in one of the tree's branches," the farmer told.