Revenue official’s murder: Govt driver lives in fear as cops hunt attacker

“Jab tak vo (shooter) nahi pakada jayega, hum tension mei hi hongey (We will remain tense till the shooter is arrested),” Kumar’s wife, Suman (32) said.

A pillow supports 34-year-old Virender Kumar’s left upper arm, which has a bullet injury. “It pains a lot,” said Kumar, who works as a driver with the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC). He flinches each time he changes his posture in the dimly-lit room, but his family has a bigger concern.

“Jab tak vo (shooter) nahi pakada jayega, hum tension mei hi hongey (We will remain tense till the shooter is arrested),” Kumar’s wife, Suman (32) said, breaking into tears. “I do not have anyone else apart from him.”

On August 14, Kumar and a patwari (revenue official) were shot at by an assailant inside their official vehicle during the survey of a disputed government land in Manesar so it could be freed of encroachments. While Kumar escaped with a bullet injury on his left upper arm, patwari Ishwar Singh (52) died.

On August 16, police arrested two persons and said the duo had planned the murder as Singh had destroyed crops they had grown on the disputed land. But almost two weeks after the daylight attack, the man who fired the shots, identified by the police as repeat offender Bhanwar Singh, is still at large.

Deputy commissioner of police (Manesar) Rajesh Kumar said that as requested by Kumar’s family, the Gurugram police has provided security to them. “There have been no threats to him after the attack,” the DCP said, adding that the police was conducting raids at different locations in Gurugram to nab Bhanwar Singh.

Due to security concerns Hindustan Times is not revealing when and where we met Kumar.

How Kumar escaped

“God saved him,” Kumar’s mother Savitri Devi (65), who sat on the edge of his mattress, said. Kumar, too, believed he got lucky. “I thought they would kill me,” he said and nodded his head in agreement when asked if he was afraid.

Around 2pm on August 14, Kumar drove HSIIDC’s official vehicle—a white Bolero—to a disputed land near Sector 1 of Manesar, where villagers were growing crops on HSIIDC land. The said plot is part of a 687acre property being investigated by the CBI and Kumar had brought lunch for one of the officers.

“As soon as I came, Ishwar Singh opened the car’s front door and sat next to me. He asked me for a bottle of water and by then I could see a motorcycle stopping behind our car,” Kumar said.

The three men who came on the motorcycle then talked to half-a-dozen villagers who were at the spot.

“One of them suddenly opened the door on Ishwar Singh’s side and fired at his left arm. He (the shooter) did not say anything; he just fired,” he said.

By then, Kumar had jumped out of the car and tried to escape, but another man caught him, dragged him back to the car and threatened to shoot him as well if he tried to escape again.

As Kumar sat in the car, Ishwar Singh fell to the ground clutching his injured arm and then the accused shot him once more, this time in the head.

“Then the shooter pointed the gun at me and, turning his head, fired on my left shoulder. I opened my door and it hit the guy who was guarding the door and he fell down,” Kumar said, adding that he then ran from the spot as the accused fired another shot.

After running for about half an hour, Kumar reportedly met other department officials who had escaped from the spot and the lot returned to their office in a tractor.