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Journalism of Courage
VEHICLES ARE being increasingly used as weapons to commit gruesome crimes. There have been five deaths in four such cases in the first four months of this year. Take the murder of Akansh Sen, a relative of the Himachal Pradesh chief minister or that of 26-year-old Virender of Saketri in Panchkula or the death of youths Rinku and Mukesh and even the death of 32-year-old Rambha Devi at Sector 19. In these cases, the accused used their vehicles as weapons.
In all cases, the victims and culprits knew each other. Though investigation is on in three cases, investigators are struggling to establish a watertight motive for homicide despite each case having a history of enmity.
ACP (Panchkula) Mukesh Malhotra, supervising the investigation of Virender’s murder, said, “Indeed, it is very difficult to give a logical end to a murder case in which a vehicle was used as a weapon for killing a person. In the Saketri case, the assailants had a motive to kill the victim.” Virender had been dragged to death under the wheels of a Swift being driven by Manmeet Singh, son of a local INLD councillor, and eight others assisted him in the crime on March 13.
Advocate Harish Bhardwaj, who practises in district courts, Sector 43, said, “There is a reason behind this trend. The culprits want to make the crime look like a road accident, which is considered to be a lesser offence than murder. In such cases, prosecution has to establish the motive and intention of the accused, which is a tough task for the prosecution.”
A senior police officer, associated with the investigation of the Akansh Sen murder case, said, “We went through the judgment delivered in Sarma Chaudhary case and concluded that the prosecution failed to establish a motive behind the murders in the first instance. But, in the case of Akansh Sen, the two accused, Harmehtab Singh Farid and Balraj Randhawa, had a motive to kill Akansh.”
Sen was hit thrice by a BMW being driven by Randhawa and Farid was the co-passenger at Sector 9 on February 9.
On April 18, Rambha Devi of Sector 30 died after her neighbour Naveen Yadav rammed the car he was driving into the two-wheeler she was riding pillion. Investigators believe they have established that Naveen had a motive to cause harm to Rambha and her husband, Ram Niwas, who was driving the motorcycle.
On April 8, bikers Rinku and Mukesh were run over by Innova driver, Raj Kumar, of Mohali following a heated argument near Sector 34. Raj Kumar has been held for murder.
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