‘Her niece thought someone was playing Holi’: 5 yrs on, a father hunts for answers

Neha, a resident of Panchkula, was attacked and murdered inside her office on March 29 by Morinda resident Balwinder Singh. His shop had been raided by a team led by Neha in 2009 and subsequently his licence was cancelled due to presence of intoxicants at the shop without any requisite documents for sale.

As per Punjab Police investigations, after killing Neha, Balwinder subsequently shot himself dead.

But Kailash Shoree alleges it was “double murder” executed by “drug mafia”. He is in the process of shooting off a letter to the President in this regard, which will be another in a series of correspondence he and his wife Arun Shoree, a retired teacher, have made to different authorities.

On January 4 this year, the couple wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Terming the murder of Neha “Crime Against Humanity”, they made an appeal to the Union Home Minister to order “opening all the cases linked to these two murders through the related and constitutionally mandated agencies like CBI, NCB…NIA and ED.”

A petition filed by the couple in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2019 in the matter is being heard and in the letter to home minister, they said “the petition is still at a rudimentary stage”.

The next date of hearing of the petition, Captain Kailash says, is March 7.

In the letter, the couple say Balwinder Singh was killed by another “planted killer”, “as part of deep-rooted conspiracy”.

Captain Kailash, who has been minutely perusing official documents and records in his “own investigations” into Neha murder case, writes in the letter, “Our findings have unveiled nexus which pilfers Buprenorphine tablets from de-addiction centres & clinics and sells outside at exorbitant prices.”

Alleging investigations into the murder of Neha as an “eyewash”, the couple wrote, “We confirm that the evidence has been tampered and destroyed to protect the criminals.”

Captain Kailash alleges that forensic examinations and post-mortem reports were “botched”. He says 10 entry wounds on Neha and Balwinder’s corpses had “different dimensions”.

Pointing out that Balwinder had wounds on chest and forehead, Captain Kailash alleges it was “impossible for him (Balwinder) to fire those two bullets on himself”.

Also pointing out that Neha’s body had eight “rounded entry wounds, whereas Balwinder’s body had two oval-shaped entry wounds”, Captain Kailash suspects that “two different weapons were used” in the “double murder”.

He says that as per SIT, eight entry wounds on Neha’s body were caused by four bullets Balwinder fired. “Geometrically it is not possible. Further, two bullets were recovered from her body. Thus, SIT’s version of two bullets causing rest of six wounds on Neha’s body is next to impossible. Two bullets from Balwinder’s body were neither recovered from his body nor sent to laboratory for forensic examination,” alleges Captain Kailash.

He also alleges irregularities in grant of arms licence to Balwinder around the time of imposition of model code of conduct for parliamentary polls in 2019.

“Four SITs were formed in a span of 12 days. We immensely co-operated with all the SITs of Punjab Police. But all along, we were misled, kept in the dark and deceived. We provided the password details of our daughter to SIT. Later, we found that data of her iPhone was deleted. Its SIM was taken out and was not returned with the phone. Forensics of cyber, ballistics and postmortems were botched despite our relentless and vigorous follow-up. SIT closed the case in January 2020 without investigating even the killer’s details,” alleges Captain Kailash.

A senior Punjab Police officer, wishing not to be named, however, denied all the allegations and said the closure report was filed after “thorough investigations”.

An affidavit filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in compliance with the court order on December 1 last year, by ADGP (Cyber Crime) V Neeraja (then IG, Ropar Range), one of the five members of the SIT, in the first week of February this year read that the SIT conducted “fair, impartial, detailed, scientific and technical investigation without any interference from internal or external quarters”.

Referring to the detailed report submitted to the office of DGP recommending filing closure report in the case, the affidavit read that during the investigation “it was found that except accused Balwinder Singh, no other person was found to be involved in the murder of Neha Shoree. Accused Balwinder Singh had shot himself dead, therefore, there was no possibility to get any information from the aforesaid accused.”

The affidavit, which prayed that petition filed by Shoree couple be dismissed “in the interest of justice”, further read, “During investigation by the SIT, it has been established that accused Balwinder Singh nursed a personal grudge against the victim for denial of fresh license even to his wife for opening a medical shop which caused severe hardship to his family. This was the main motive/reason for the murder of victim Neha Shoree. Medical evidence has revealed that accused Balwinder Singh was under the influence of intoxicants when he went to the office of Neha and shot her dead.”

It also read, “The family had expressed their apprehension that there may be a conspiracy by the drug mafia to eliminate their daughter. The conspiracy angle was thoroughly investigated by the SIT but no evidence could be found regarding the same.”

On issuance of arms licence, the affidavit read, “It was found that arms licence was issued to the accused on 08.03.2019 as per the rules and after proper verification. Further, no conspiracy of the officers/officials of DC office, Ropar was found in this regard.

There was no violation of rule by the DC office, Ropar or by the Gun House, Ropar in giving weapon to the accused. Detailed investigation in this regard was conducted by Sh. Arun Pal Singh, IPS, the then IGP/Crime and members of SIT who personally investigated every aspect of the matter.”

The affidavit also read, “It is submitted that technical evidence was obtained in form of Call Detail Records (CDRs) of various persons, including officials of the FDA… and analysed by the SIT. It has been found that no official from the office of FDA, Punjab, Kharar was in contact with accused/deceased Balwinder Singh.”

It also read, “It is further submitted that the mobile phone of the deceased was handed over to her husband Varun Monga on 20.09.2019 with the order of court of SDJM, Kharar. The laptop is still lying in Malkhana and the petitioners seem to have taken no action to take custody of the laptop, which demolish their argument in paragraph 16 of the petition about deletion of data from the same.”

On injuries, while asserting that “the post-mortem of deceased has revealed two fire arm injuries, which is matter of record”, the affidavit while vehemently denying the allegations made in the petition read, “The applicants are making baseless allegations on the basis of surmises and conjectures.”