Murder witness shot dead in Karnal

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, December 18

A man was shot dead outside his house in Vikas Colony here today. The deceased, Neeraj Kumar (25), was a witness to the murder of his cousin brother.

He was provided security cover but, at the time of the incident, the guard was not with him, a member of his family claimed. The deceased’s brother, Amit Kumar, said three persons came on a motorcycle and fired at Neeraj today evening.

Neeraj was a witness to the murder of his cousin, Amit alias Kala, who was killed at his relative’s house on January 21. The police had booked five persons for killing Neeraj’s cousin. They are still at large.

“The police’s negligence in arresting Kala’s killers proved fatal for Neeraj. The same accused have killed Neeraj,” Amit Kumar alleged.

Neeraj’s members of family and neighbours, meanwhile, gathered at Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College Hospital, where the body was taken for the post-mortem.

They said the post-mortem would not be allowed till the accused were arrested. They refused to talk with the police and threatened to go on an indefinite agitation.

SP Abhishek Garg, DSP Raj Kumar and other police officials tried to pacify the protesters, but they were adamant on the arrest of the accused.

“When the incident happened, the security guard was standing at a distance and, before he could act, the accused escaped,” Garg said.

The family had not filed any complaint, but the preliminary probe brought out that it was handiwork of the gang that killed Neeraj’s cousin, the SP said. “The police are out to arrest members of the gang,” he added.

INLD national general secretary Brij Sharma criticised the incident and asked the Haryana Government that if a person who had security cover could be killed, who could feel safe? He demanded arrest of the accused.