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Mohali: Seeking arrest, kin of murdered youth choke Airport Road
Placing the body on the road in a casket around 10 am, the victim’s family refused to cremate it until the accused, who they said were migrants, were arrested
A day after a 17-year-old boy was murdered by six individuals, including some juveniles, in Mohali’s Kumbra village on Wednesday, the victim’s parents blocked both sides of Airport Road near the Sector 68/79 light point, triggering chaos on this crucial traffic lifeline and peripheral roads even as far as 5 kilometres away.
Placing the body on the road in a casket around 10 am, the victim’s family refused to cremate it until the accused, who they said were migrants, were arrested.
Protesters continued to block the road till the filing of this report, forcing clueless commuters to take long and choked detours to reach their destinations.
Further compounding the chaos, Mohali police also blocked the Airport Road by stationing trucks near Sohana gurdwara.
This translated into major traffic jams around Sectors 68, 69, 70, 71, 77, 78, 79 and even Sector 88, apart from Phases 7, 8 and 9.
“It took me over an hour to reach Phase 8 from my office in Phase 8-B, Industrial Area, normally a 20-minute commute. The traffic was majorly choked due to the diversions and blockage on Airport Road. Worse, there were no cops to manage the maddening traffic even on a key road accommodating government offices and a prominent private hospital in Phase 8. It would have been very difficult for ambulances to reach the hospital in case of an emergency,” said Rashmi Bali, a Mohali resident.
Another commuter, Sneha Mahajan, who also got stuck in the traffic snarl on Airport Road, said it took her 90 minutes to reach Zirakpur from TDI.
Heavy police force deployed
Heavy police force was deployed at the protest site to avoid any untoward situation. Multiple local politicians, including Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu and SAD district president Parvinder Sohana, besides Nihang Sikhs, also reached the spot in support of the victim’s family and sought immediate arrest of the accused.
Under the supervision of SP City Harbir Singh Attwal and DSP HS Bal, cops were also stationed at Kumbran village, suspecting violence.
SP Attwal said, “We have already registered a case. Multiple teams, led by three station house officers, besides CIA teams, are already on the trail of the accused, who will be arrested soon. We have also taken action against the PG owner who accommodated the accused in his property without tenant verification.”
The six accused have been booked under Sections 103(2) (a group of five or more persons acting in concert commits murder on the ground of race, caste or community ), 109 (1) (attempt to murder) , 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 190 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence) and 191(2) (if any member of an unlawful assembly uses violence or force) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the Phase-8 police station.
Will not budge till accused are arrested: Victim’s father
Balwinder Singh, grieving father of the deceased, a vegetable vendor, while addressing the protesters refused to vacate the road and cremate his son, Daman Kumar, till the arrest of the accused.
He told police that on Wednesday, his son’s friends Ashok, Manveer and Abhishek had accidentally rammed their cycles into those of accused, which led to heated arguments.
After some time, the accused returned with a knife to confront the trio. “As my son Daman and his friend Dilpreet were standing nearby, they intervened to avoid any clash, but one of the accused stabbed my son in the chest and Dilpreet in the face, before fleeing the spot. The villagers rushed them to a private hospital in Phase 9, where doctors declared my son dead,” Singh said.
