A man in his late 20s allegedly attempted suicide on Facebook Live at Bhutiwal village of Muktsar district on Friday. Gurtej Singh went live on Facebook for four minutes, 59 seconds, during which he was seen pointing a gun towards his chest and collapsing after a gunshot. The bullet, however, passed through his left arm. He was admitted to a local hospital where his condition was stated to be stable. A suicide note was recovered from his pocket, according to which he blamed his uncle. Throughout the video, he alleged that his taya (paternal uncle) got his father’s four acres of land transferred on his name fraudulently. He said that he continued farming on the land, but when his uncle Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon, a retired naib tehsildaar, asked him to vacate the plot, he got to know about the “fraudulent transfer”. “We have been cheated and hence I have no choice but to end my life, but after watching this video, when I will be no more, justice should be given to my family. My uncle has shown papers of 2008 when he told us that we had sold the four acres to him, but we never got any money from him. We are clueless about it,” he was seen saying in the video. He added that during his service tenure, his uncle had purchased many properties in Muktsar, Patiala and other places, urging the government to inquire into the deals. Muktsar SSP Sushil Kumar stated that they were investigating the matter. “We are getting statement of the victim recorded and will take action accordingly. He is stable,” he said. Dhillon, however, said that Singh’s family had sold the land to him in 2008 and that he had duly paid them. He claimed that he has all the papers with him to support his case and already a complaint has been filed in Kotbhai police station regarding this. “Despite purchasing the land, I allowed my nephew to continue farming without asking for any rent, but this year, I demanded an annual lease amount, after which the whole controversy started,” he said.
