Man injured in firing by ASI’s son, two others, dies

A 38-year-old succumbed to his bullet injuries on Tuesday after being fired at on Friday allegedly by three men, including a policeman’s son. The trio were forcing another man to open his grocery shop during curfew in Kale village under the Chheharta police station.

Davinder Singh, who died at a private hospital in Amritsar, was standing at the threshold of his house on Friday when a young man from the village, Lovepreet Singh alias Love, was forcing a shopkeeper to open his grocery store.

Mandeep Singh, the shopkeeper, had said earlier that Love had knocked on the shutter of his store, asking to open it and abusing him when he refused. A neighbour who tried to pacify him was also beaten up before Love left the place and returned with two other men, Sarabjit Singh, alias Sabha, and Sashi, and started pelting stones and bricks at the shop. When neighbours intervened again one of the three men opened fire and a “bullet brushed past Davinder Singh,” Mandeep Singh had said.

Gurpreet Singh, the elder brother of the deceased, said, “Two of the accused had pistols and fired thrice. The third shot hit my brother’s hip.”

He alleged that even after Davinder Singh was hit the accused continued to brandish pistols for several minutes.

Sabha is the son of Kuldeep Singh, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) at Jhander police station in Amritsar.

Assistant commissioner of police (ACP-West) Dev Dutt said the trio had been arrested and a .32 bore pistol recovered from Sahba’s possession.

The weapon used to commit the crime was illegal and investigations suggested that sabha had opened fire, he added.

Station house officer (SHO) of Chheharta police station, Rajwinder Kaur, said section 302 (murder) had been added in the first information report (FIR) registered against the accused.

The deceased was unmarried and helped his father run a chemist shop in the village. He was also associated with a Khalra Mission Organisation, a human rights outfit.