‘Toofan Kothi’, 9 cars: What led to three deaths in a Delhi family

A quarrel over parking space led to the death of two brothers and the wife of the elder sibling in north Delhi’s Model Town.

A long-standing property dispute may have led to two brothers not seeing eye-to-eye for years, but for a family that owned nine cars, it was a quarrel over parking space that proved to be the final trigger to a confrontation that claimed three lives.

Jaspal Singh, his wife Prabhjot Kaur, and brother Gurjeet lost their lives in Model Town in Delhi. (Sourced)

At the centre of this property dispute was “Toofan Kothi” a sprawling bungalow spread across 500 square yards and three floors where the two brothers — Jaspal Singh and Gurjeet Singh — lived with their families. The property served as a local landmark of sorts, said a neighbour.

Over the years, both families not just had frequent public arguments but were also allegedly involved in cases of violence. Each side wanted the other to live elsewhere, relatives and neighbours said.

“Since Harnam Singh alias Toofan, the late father of the brothers after whom the building was named, passed away in 2011, the fights intensified. The eldest of the three siblings had started living separately in another area of Model Town before their father’s death, which meant the family house was left for the two brothers to share thereafter,” said a neighbour who did not wish to be identified.

The families of Jaspal and Gurjeet had run-ins with each other at repeated intervals. Each wanted the other to vacate the property, said Ravinder Singh Kohli, their cousin.

“After Toofan’s death, the house was divided between the two brothers. The arrangement was such that Jaspal was to live on the ground floor and Gurjeet got the first floor. Each of these floors had similar constructions,” said Kohli.

Kohli added that the space on the building’s top floor was to be shared between the sons of Gurjeet and Jaspal. After repeated counselling from relatives and family members, the two sides had reached an arrangement that had temporarily settled the dispute. However, the truce was short lived.

“The brothers soon started quarrelling again. Though the area within the bungalow was divided, the dispute then started about the parking space. They could not come to a settlement on that,” said a police officer investigating the case.

According to Kohli, Jaspal and Gurjeet’s families owned nine expensive cars but had a limited amount of space alongside the boundary of the property.

“The fights intensified and they started registered criminal cases against each other. In one case, one side was accused of molesting a female member of the other. In another case, Jaspal’s son Kanwar was booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder after he allegedly tried to run over someone from Gurjeet’s family,” said the officer.

Another such arguments over parking space started on Thursday night and by the end of it, both Jaspal and Gurjeet were killed along with Jaspal’s wife Prabhjot.