Was Jaggu Bhagwanpuria’s cousin Karanvir Singh the real target in Batala shootout?

Two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on an SUV late Thursday night in Batala, Punjab, killing Harjit Kaur, the mother of jailed gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, and her nephew, Karanjeet Singh.

Now, police source suggest what many feared that Karanjeet Singh may have been the intended target all along.

The attackers fired more than a dozen rounds point-blank as Karanjeet and Harjit had just stepped into the vehicle parked outside their residence.

Both victims sustained bullet injuries to the face, chest, and stomach.

While Harjit Kaur succumbed to her injuries on the way to a hospital in Amritsar, Karanjeet Singh died on the spot, a sign, investigators believe, of a deliberate, targeted hit.

Claiming responsibility, the Davinder Bambiha gang posted on social media, alleging the hit was in retaliation for the killing of Gurpreet alias Gora Bariyar, a Bambiha associate who was shot dead in May, allegedly by Bhagwanpuria gang members.

The CCTV footage is being analysed, and cops are looking into the angle that "the main target of the assailants was Karanjeet Singh, said to be close to the Bhagwanpuria family, and Harjit Kaur was killed accidentally."

A massive drive to nab the accused has been launched. There were rumors in the city that the main target of the assailants was Karanjeet Singh, said to be close to the Bhagwanpuria family, and that Harjit Kaur had been killed accidentally. The cops are looking into this angle, too.

Harjit Kaur, who hailed from Bhagwanpur, was earlier elected as a member of the village panchayat. In March, jailed gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria had been detained under the PIT-NDPS Act and shifted from the central jail in Bathinda to Assam's Silchar jail. Bhagwanpuria was already in the custody of the Punjab Police in the 2022 Sidhu Moosewala murder case. Besides, he faces several other cases.