6, including Bishnoi aide, acquitted in Burail firing case

A local court has acquitted all seven accused, including Monty Shah, alleged member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, in a five-year-old firing incident at Burail village. The other accused who have been acquitted are Vinay Kalyan, Mohit, Deepak, Parvinder, Virender Soni and Monty Shah. One accused, Kuldeep Singh Gogal, had died during the trial.

The Chandigarh Police had registered the case on October 12, 2020, against the accused on the allegation that Monty had fired shots at Tirath Singh and Parveen on the direction of Lawrence. Both are witnesses in the alleged murder case of property dealer Sonu Shah of Burail. Sonu was allegedly gunned down by four assailants inside his office at Burail village, Sector 45, on September 28, 2019. He was also running a cable business in the village. After the murder, the Bishnoi group had allegedly taken responsibility for his killing in a Facebook post.

During investigation, Monty was allegedly caught on a CCTV camera with a gun and firing around six rounds at Tirath Singh on the day of the incident. However, Tirath and Parveen escaped unhurt in the incident.

Monty was arrested in May, 2021, by the Chandigarh Police. The police claimed that after the alleged firing incident of Burail, Monty escaped to Kalka in a car and stayed at the house of his cousins Vinay and Mohit.

After completion of the investigation, the police filed the charge-sheet against the accused under Sections 307, 120-B and 212 of the IPC and Sections 25, 27, 54 and 59 of the Indian Arms Act. Case charges were framed against the accused, to which the accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

Vivek Kathuria, counsel of two accused Mohit and Virender denied the charges and claimed that the accused had been falsely implicated in the case. He said that the complainant also did not support the case. After hearing the arguments the court acquitted all accused of the charges framed against them.