Police are investigating a 30-year-old Battambang man after his 11-year-old son was accidentally shot dead by his younger brother with one of two homemade guns.

Captain Chhith Seng, deputy Sampov Loun district police chief, said the boy died Tuesday afternoon when he and his seven-year-old brother were playing with a pair of air rifles their father may have used for hunting.

“He was playing with the homemade air rifles with his younger brother in his house while his parents were out working on farms. He was shot [in] the head and died immediately,” he told the Post yesterday.

After hearing the shots, neighbours ran into the victim’s home and discovered the boy dead at the scene.

Police added that the boys had overloaded the gun with various projectiles and that the dead boy had six separate pieces of shrapnel in his head.

Seng said police questioned the father who claimed the guns didn’t belong to him and told them his sons picked them up in the forest and brought them to the house.

“Our police are still working and seeking the owner of this homemade air rifle. After investigating, if we have found that this father was the owner of the illegal gun, he will be charged with illegally possessing a homemade weapon and causing someone to die,” he said.

The father had not been arrested but remained under police supervision, Seng said.