Vaid shot dead,driver held for murder

Dharamveer Sharma,who hailed from Gidderbaha in Punjab,was shot in the forehead by a .32 bore gun,said police. The accused is also a resident of Gidderbaha and was employed by Sharma just a month ago.

Initially,Kala claimed to be the lone eyewitness to the murder. The police found several loopholes in his statement,following which Kala was subjected to sustained interrogation. “Kala finally confessed and admitted that he connived with three others to kill his employer in order to rob Rs 35,000,” said Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police Jatinder Singh Aulakh.

Two of the accomplices,who escaped with the loot,have also been identified. The police got suspicious when he reported that the assailants had also taken away his mobile phone. On decoding his mobile call details,the police were able to trace his links with the assailants. “After killing Sharma,Kala’s accomplices fled the scene while he stayed back in a bid to mislead the police,” added the SSP.

To begin with,Kala told the police that he was in the kitchen when an unknown youth,wearing a white helmet,caught him from behind and asked him to remain silent. Soon after,he heard a gunshot followed by someone saying ‘woh mar gaya,jaldi bhaag chalo’. “The four men beat me up and fled. Later,I found Sharma lying in a pool of blood. So,I rushed to the Panchkula barrier and narrated the incident to the Panchkula police officers present there,” Kala told the police.

However,he said,the policemen refused to come along and referred him to the Zirakpur police.

Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police Jatinder Singh Aulakh,Superintendent of Police (Detective) R K Bakshi,Deputy Superintendent of Police J S Khera and Station House Officer Ranjodh Singh soon reached the spot and began investigation. The body has been shifted to the Civil Hospital for a postmortem.

Sharma is survived by his wife and three married children,including two sons and a daughter. According to Sharma’s elder son Ashok Kumar,Sharma was a specialist in treating sex problems using a traditional system of medicine. Sharma had opened a new branch in Zirakpur last week and attended to patients on every Monday and Tuesday. On the rest of the days,he ran a clinic in Gidderbaha. He had reached Zirakpur on Sunday night in his Alto car driven by Kala,who was employed last month,to see patients on Monday morning. Kala had also tried to mislead the police by stating that Sharma had received several threat calls ordering him not to open a clinic in Shimla. The accused claimed this was the reason why Sharma had started the clinic in Zirakpur.

Watchman found dead in Leisure Valley
A watchman,deputed at a building of the Chandigarh Industrial Tourism Corporation (CITCO) at Leisure Valley,Sector 10,was found dead with his throat slit with a knife in his room on Monday. The deceased was identified as 43-year-old Gum Bahadur,a native of Nepal. The murder came to light when Dhanesh,the watchman of a nearby building,discovered the body lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom and informed the police.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Madhur Verma said there was a possibility that more than two persons had committed the crime. “We have found three glasses,half-filled with liquor,and a bottle of liquor on the table in his room. There were no signs of a forced entry,which makes it evident that the killers were know to the victim,” he added. A team from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory visited the spot and collected samples and fingerprints from the room. Bahadur was last seen on Sunday around 5 pm. Dhanesh told the police that he used to meet Bahadur in the morning daily. “Today,he did not find Bahadur sitting outside his room. As the door was open,he went inside and found the body,” said a police officer. Bahadur served as an employee of UT Horticulture department for over 20 years and was deputed at the building for the last few years. A case of murder has been registered and the body has been sent to the mortuary for a postmortem.