Two gunned down at INLD man’s factory in Sirsa village

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 12

Assailants gunned down two persons sitting in the office of a kinnow waxing plant of INLD worker Pradeep Godara at Chautala village of Sirsa late last night.

The assailants, believed to be two in number, came in a vehicle and started firing indiscriminately immediately after entering the office where the victims, Satbir Punia (40) and Amit Saharan (38), were present.

The assailants fired nearly 40 rounds. The victims died on the spot.

Ranbir Singh, who was also in the room, hid himself to save his life.

Sources said though CCTV cameras were installed in the kinnow plant, these were out of order for the past some days.

The police were informed, who took the bodies into custody for post-mortem examination.

The kinnow plant of Godara, a close associate of Leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala, is situated on the Dabwali–Sangharia highway.

Last evening, Godara was in the office with some other INLD workers. Sources said a few minutes before the incident, Godara and some others went inside the plant while the victims and Ranbir were sitting in the office.

Talking to mediapersons, Godara said he had revealed the names of suspects to the police. He said for the past some days, some criminals behind the Nabha jailbreak incident were hiding in the area and the Punjab Police had conducted raids here too. He added that the manner in which the crime was executed last night made him suspect that it was the handiwork of professionals.

Sirsa SP Satinder Kumar Gupta said police teams had been constituted and they were confident of getting a clue to the crime very soon. He said the police were acting on various angles, including on the leads given by Godara in his complaint.

Meanwhile, Abhay Singh reached Chautala village in the afternoon and attended the cremation of the two victims.

The Leader of the Opposition alleged that despite inputs that Nabha jailbreak fugitives were hiding in Sirsa district the police did nothing.

Abhay said inputs had been received from the Bathinda police several days ago about the hiding of Nabha jailbreak accused in the district but no search was done. He said reports about the presence of members of the Babua gang of UP were also there but the police did nothing.

He alleged that Godara was the assailants’ real target.