Sippy Sidhu, former national-level shooter, shot dead in Chandigarh park

Read: Former national-level shooter Sippy Sidhu was aware of threat to life, complained to police

A member of the SIT told Chandigarh Newsline they were analysing phone calls of Sippy but the way in which the bullets were fired on the face of the victim pointed out that the murder was carried out due to some personal enmity.

According to the police, the PCR received a call around 11.30 pm on Sunday that a man was lying in an unconscious condition in the Sector 27 park. When the PCR team reached the spot, they found that the man was shot and was bleeding profusely.

The PCR team took Sippy to the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, where doctors declared him dead on arrival. Four bullet injury marks were found on his body.

Police officers said that Sippy’s Chevrolet Optra car was recovered from around 100 metres away from the park. The police also recovered his mobile phone and wallet.

Officials of the Chemical and Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), who visited the spot and examined the body, suspected that two different weapons were used to kill Sippy and he was attacked by more than two persons. The CFSL team said that the killers did not leave any shell on the spot which showed that they were professionals.

“Gunshots were fired at close range, one hit the right shoulder, the other the chest and the third the face. We did not find any shell from the spot. We examined the area with the help of sniffer dogs but there was no shell. It seems to be the work of highly trained people,” said a CFSL official who examined the body at GMSH-16.

The police also suspected it to be a case of contract killing. “From the manner in which he was shot dead, it appears to be a case of contract killing. The professional manner in which the man was shot dead and the assailants did not leave any clues behind lead to the suspicion that somebody might have hired contract killers to eliminate him,” said a police official.

The CFSL officials said that Sippy was killed in the park and he was shot around two hours before his body was noticed by a passerby. The team collected samples from the park.

The victim’s family members said that he left home in Phase 3B2, Mohali, to meet his friends.

“He told us that he was going to meet his friends in Sector 26 and left home around 7 pm on Sunday. After that, we tried his phone but it was not reachable. Then we received a call from Chandigarh Police about the recovery of the body,” said a family member of Sippy.

On Sunday afternoon, Sippy had lunch with his fiancee, a Mohali-based girl, at Swagath restaurant in Sector 26 and then they both went to watch a movie. He told his fiancee that he had to meet somebody at 8 pm. The preliminary investigations also revealed that he spoke to a Delhi-based woman late in the evening.

Sippy had a multi-crore property dispute with a Delhi-based man, which the Chandigarh Police is now probing to find more clues.

Sippy, a national-level shooter, was the founder and secretary general of Paralymic Committee of Punjab and joint secretary of the now-suspended Paralympic Committee of India. He also ran a law firm, Sippy Law Firm, in Sector 91, Mohali.

Shooter Abhinav Bindra said, “He was very active 10 years ago and had been shooting at national championships every year. However, I did not know him personally.” Sippy, however, never competed internationally.
The body was cremated after the post-mortem at the Sector 25 cremation ground on Monday.

Women’s angle being probed

Preliminary investigations conducted by the police revealed that Sippy was in regular touch with three women. His phone call records being scrutinised by the police indicated that he was in regular touch with two Punjab-based and one Delhi-based woman. Since his phone is “password-protected”, the police are seeking help of its cyber cell to crack the password so that his phone can be analysed for more clues. However, Sippy’s family told the police that he did not have any enmity with anybody.