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Mohali police recover pistols, car used to murder Vikramjit Middukhera
The recoveries were made following the interrogation of three of the assailants and gangster Bhupi Rana, who were in the custody of Mohali police for 13 days
Police have recovered four countrymade pistols used to murder Youth Akali Dal leader Vikramjit Singh Middukhera, 33, in Sector 71 in August last year.
Police have also recovered the Hyundai i20 car used by the assailants in the crime, apart from eight live cartridges.
The recoveries were made following the interrogation of three of the assailants and gangster Bhupi Rana, who were in the custody of Mohali police for 13 days.
However, police have yet to confirm the motive behind the daylight murder and the identity of the fourth shooter.
Among the pistols recovered, three are .30 bore and another is 9mm.
The three shooters, Anil Kumar, alias Latth; Sajjan Singh, alias Bholu; and Ajay Kumar, alias Sunny, who are aligned with the Davinder Bambiha gang, and gangster Bhupinder Singh, alias Bhupi Rana, were produced in a local court on Monday and sent to judicial custody.
Police had brought Rana, who is lodged in Karnal Jail, to Mohali on production warrant on May 2, while the other three gangsters were brought from Delhi on April 25.
Mohali senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vivek Sheel Soni said, “We have made significant progress in the probe and are also hopeful of identifying the fourth killer soon. He is based in Mohali and had joined them a day before they executed the murder.”
On August 7, 2021, Middukhera was about to sit in his SUV after visiting the office of a property dealer in Sector 71 around 10.30 am, when two masked men chased him and fired multiple shots at him.
Middukhera had ran for his life for about 500 metres amid raining bullets and had even managed to scale the wall of the Sector 71 community centre for cover, but could not survive. He used to carry a licensed pistol in his vehicle, but did not get a chance to grab it.
The two shooters had come in a white Hyundai i20 car, that has been recovered, with two more masked men. The entire incident was caught on a CCTV camera installed in the area.
Hunt on for singer’s manager who gave shelter to shooters
Apart from the four shooters, Mohali police have also named a Punjabi singer’s manager, Shagunpreet Singh, in the FIR and have issued a lookout notice for him. Shagunpreet is said to have fled to Australia days after the Delhi Police raided his flat at Jal Vayu Vihar in Kharar.
According to police probe, Shagunpreet is suspected to have given shelter to the four sharpshooters at this flat after picking them up from Gurdwara Singh Shaheedan, Sohana, in a Maruti Swift car on August 6, a day before the murder. His name was revealed by the three shooters during their interrogation.
Police officials said Shagunpreet even helped the shooters carry out the recee of Middhukhera’s house and showed his photographs to them.
Both Shagunpreet and the Punjabi singer were together in Dubai from March 24 to April 2 this year, before Shagunpreet fled to Australia after returning to India.
While police are working to establish the motive behind the murder, their probe so far has revealed that Middukhera was eliminated following a conspiracy by gangsters Kaushal Chaudhary and Amit Dagar, who are lodged in jails in Karnal and Delhi, respectively, and gangster Gaurav Padial, alias Lucky Padial, who is in Armenia and leads the Davinder Bambiha gang since the gangster’s death in a police encounter in 2016.
When Kaushal was brought to Mohali for interrogation, he had revealed the names of Sajjan and Anil for killing Middukhera.
The day Middukhera was shot dead, the Davinder Bambiha gang had claimed responsibility for the murder, following which the Lawrence Bishnoi gang members had vowed to avenge the killing.
