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Journalism of Courage
The two shooters who killed Sikh activist Gurpreet Singh at Hari Nau in Punjab’s Faridkot district on Wednesday managed to escape soon after the crime even though two police units were active in the area, especially with the model code of conduct for panchayat elections in place.
Gurpreet Singh was returning home after campaigning for a sarpanch candidate when two assailants on a motorcycle opened fire, severely injuring him. He was hit by four bullets. After the shooting, the attackers fled the scene. Singh was rushed to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College, Faridkot, where he was pronounced dead.
Within minutes of the murder, officials from the police’s counterintelligence unit from Ferozpur arrived at the scene. Officials of the police unit, which gathers intelligence to bust criminal networks before they strike, claimed they had no prior information about the murder and were in the area for an unrelated operation.
Later that evening, the assistant inspector general of the counterintelligence unit in Bathinda, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, arrived at the site, although the jurisdiction belonged to the Faridkot police. It is uncommon for counterintelligence units to engage in post-crime investigations.
The shooters escaped not only when counterintelligence officials were present in the area but also with the Faridkot police highly active as part of cordon and search operations initiated across the state. Many news outlets had reported the heightened police activity on the day of the murder.
The shooters thus managed to enter the village and shoot Gurpreet Singh multiple times before disappearing around 6 pm on Wednesday despite the police presence.
“The investigation is ongoing. I was there to investigate the murder along with the Faridkot police,” said Avneet Kaur.
When asked if counterintelligence officials from Ferozpur had received any tip-off about a potential crime in the area, she replied, “No, they were in the area for some other operation.”
Pragya Jain, Senior Superintendent of Police, Faridkot, declined to comment on the presence of counterintelligence officials near the murder site and their involvement in the investigation.
“We are conducting the investigation. It wouldn’t be right to make any comment on the investigation at this stage,” Jain said.
The police have made no arrests so far but, according to sources, have detained from Hari Nau village a suspect in an extortion case as part of the investigation. He was released from the Faridkot jail a day after Gurpreet Singh’s murder.
The sources said that police were investigating a call made to the suspect in jail shortly after the murder and were also looking into whether gangster Arash Dala had a role in the case.
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