Dehradun: Gurtaj Bhullar, a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district, who lost his wife in a shootout at his farmhouse involving the Uttar Pradesh police, has not shared the CCTV footage with investigators despite two notices, a senior Uttarakhand police officer said on Tuesday.
“CCTV footage is crucial to connect the dots. We have served two notices on Gurtaj Bhullar to get the footage of CCTV cameras installed at their farmhouse but they are yet to respond to it,” Udham Singh Nagar district senior superintendent of police Manjunath TC said.
Gurtaj Bhullar could not be contacted for his response to the police claim.
His wife, Gurpreet Kaur, died in a shootout on October 12 that started after a team of UP police from Moradabad reached the Bhullar farmhouse in pursuit of mining mobster Zafar Ali. The UP police insist that its team was fired upon by some people at the farmhouse and it opened retaliatory fire. As proof, the UP police point to two members of its team sustaining bullet injuries.
It is not clear if Gurpreet Kaur was hit by a bullet fired by the police. Police officers earlier sid the bullet that killed her did not lodge inside her body but appeared to have passed through.
{{/usCountry}}It is not clear if Gurpreet Kaur was hit by a bullet fired by the police. Police officers earlier sid the bullet that killed her did not lodge inside her body but appeared to have passed through.
{{/usCountry}}The shootout led to a huge controversy after the Uttarakhand police accused their counterparts from UP of carrying out raids outside its jurisdiction without intimating the local police in Udham Singh Nagar.
A murder case was also registered by the Uttarakhand police against 10-12 UP policemen. The row between the two police forces escalated on Tuesday when a top Uttarakhand civil servant, additional chief secretary (home) Radha Raturi said: “UP police action was wrong. If you punish an innocent person, 99 other criminals are born. Right judgement should be made and right people should be punished.”
After a stinging counter from the UP police, Raturi clarified that the UP police was doing a good job and she only meant “that innocent should not be punished”.