Punjabi youth shot dead in Manila

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, August 10

A 25-year-old Kapurthala youth has been shot dead in Manila, the Capital of the Philippines. The CCTV footage of the gruesome incident has gone viral.

Nishan Singh, Punjabi youth who had gone abroad in search of livelihood, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant.

Hailing from Randhawa village in Kapurthala district, Nishan was unmarried and the only brother of five sisters. His family received information about the incident on Wednesday from a Manila-based associate of Nishan.

His death comes amidst a spate of recent incidents of deaths of Punjabi youths abroad.

The CCTV footage of the incident shows Nishan sitting across a table along with two friends when an unknown bike-borne man suddenly approaches him and fires a shot at his head from close range, with Nishan immediately collapsing, face down, on a table, then falling on the floor.

The friends disperse, the bike borne assailant quickly flees the spot.

Nishan had moved to Manila about four years ago in hopes of a better future abroad.

Gloom descended at Randhawa village in Kapurthala as his hapless family grieved their only son’s passing.

The family wept and said help should be given to bring his body to Punjab so that the family could perform the last rites of their son at the village.

A weeping mother of Nishan Singh, Ranjit Kaur said, “My son was my life. He went abroad four years ago. We don’t know why someone would shoot him. I just have one request from the state government, that they bring my son (his body) back.”

Jarnail Singh, brother-in-law of Nishan said, “We still don’t know what led to his killing. I had talked to him hours ago and later received news of his death. I don’t know who killed him. We saw the footage and await the police report.”