Perpetrators yet to be brought to book

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, August 13

The crime graph continues to show an upward trend in Panchkula district. Be it the murder of a schoolteacher or rape of the 21-year-old engineering student, the police have failed to solve most major cases.

There has been no progress in the Friday’s robbery of Rs 2 lakh at the Industrial Area, Phase II.

SK Nayar, chairman, Citizens Welfare Association, Panchkula, said since the start of year, the crime in Panchkula had increased. “The cases are yet to be solved and this is probably the reason why the people are not feeling safe,” he said.

The Haryana Police never bothered to take steps to add teeth to the police force.

Echoing a similar view, Varun Gupta, a resident of Sector 7, Panchkula, said a majority of the street lights and CCTV cameras were non-functional. The police and the district administration should do something to ensure residents’ safety, he said.

Police Commissioner’s take

Panchkula Police Commissioner AS Chawla said they had got leads and were working on cracking the Friday’s robbery. On the pending cases of 2017, he said after Independence Day, his teams would be all out to solve the cases. During the interrogation of Lawrence Bishnoi and his gang members, the police had got leads related to other cases as well and soon all these pending cases would be solved, he added.  

Unsolved cases of 2017

January 19: An unidentified miscreant allegedly kidnaps a 21-year-old engineering student from 

Sector 20 and rapes her. No arrest so far.

May 11: A 39-year-old woman schoolteacher is found dead in her car in Chandimandir with at least 25 stab wounds on her body. No arrest so far.

June 5: Snatchers chop off the fingers of a HUDA employee when he resisted a snatching bid in the Sector 5 market. No arrest so far.

June 6: Youth drives off an Infosys engineer’s four-wheeler from Panchkula’s Sector 20 market with a five-year-old boy in the back seat, while the woman jumps of the vehicle.

June 17: Three armed men of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang fire gunshots into the air, use pepper spray on  hospital staff, cops and free gangster Deepak Kumar brought from the Ambala jail to Panchkula for a medical examination. Main accused Sampat Nehra and Deepak Kumar are still at large.

August 11: Gunpoint robbery of Rs 2 lakh in the Industrial Area, Phase II, Panchkula.