AAP leader's murder triggers panic among residents in Jalandhar

The murder of Aam Aadmi Party leader Satwinderpal Singh, alias Lucky Oberoi (41), on Friday morning outside Gurdwara Singh Sabha in Model Town here triggered widespread panic among residents.

Oberoi’s Thar was riddled with bullet holes after he was shot from a close range at 7:36 am by a youth who arrived on a scooter and opened fire in the parking area outside the gurdwara. A wedding was underway inside the premises at the time, adding to the chaos and panic among the families present.

As the motive behind the crime became clearer by afternoon, it emerged that a recent appointment of a student union president at Lyallpur Khalsa College — made by Oberoi — had created a dispute that ultimately led to the killing.

This was not the first such incident. On December 21, gunshots were fired at a group of 20–25 students of St Soldier College, Jalandhar, at a fuel station near Alawalpur over a similar conflict concerning the appointment of a student union president. The police had arrested the main accused after a brief encounter the same day.

Angad Dutta, secretary, Punjab Youth Congress, held the government morally, administratively and politically responsible for the killing. He stated that the tragedy was waiting to happen and could have been prevented had the police adhered to the alarm sounded to them.

Dutta revealed that on December 22, he had warned the Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar, about the growing menace of illegal ‘presidentship’ culture, armed youth groups, and parallel power centres, and demanded immediate legal action. “I had warned the administration that if such unlawful activities were not curbed, Jalandhar would slide into violent confrontation and today we are witnessing the consequences.”

Dutta has demanded an independent judicial probe into the murder of Lucky Oberoi, accountability of district officers who ignored preventive warnings, immediate dismantling of illegal political and criminal structures and clear fixing of responsibility at the highest level.