The wedding celebrations turn into tragedy as the celebratory firing killed a 22-year-old girl on late Saturday night in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur. The incident took place during a pre-wedding function when the bride’s father reportedly fired a shot that hit the girl who was standing on the terrace.
The deceased is identified as Sakshi Arora, a resident of Hoshiarpur who was pursuing her last year in Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at a Jalandhar-based APJ College.
Following the incident, the police has arrested the accused identified as Ashok Khosla and recovered his licensed .32 bore revolver, from which the fire was shot.
Police said Khosla, who had organised a DJ party on the occasion of his daughter’s pre- wedding function, was inebriated at the time of the incident.
The police has also booked another accused Ashok Sethi, Khosla’s friend, who was also firing in the air from his double barrel rifle during the function.
Sakshi’s father Charanjit Arora, in his first information report (FIR), stated that his daughter was standing on the terrace watching the DJ party organised by their neighbours. “Suddenly, a celebratory bullet, fired during the function, hit Sakshi’s forehead and she died on the spot,” he stated.
The City police station’s station house officer (SHO) Jagdish Raj said that they have arrested the main accused Ashok Khosla, while Sethi is absconding. The case has been registered under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 25, 27-54-59 of the Arms Act.
This is not the first such incident. Many lives have been lost over past several years both in Punjab and Haryana, during the celebratory fire at the weddings.
Only recently, a celebratory gun-shot killed eight-year-old Vikramjit Singh while leaving another child - Class-III student Kamreen Brar - injured in Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.
Before that, in December 2016, a 25-year-old dancer Kulwinder Kaur was dropped dead while performing on stage after a celebratory fire by an inebriated man at a wedding in Maur, near Bathinda.
In October 2016, 70-year-old Surjit Kaur, was killed during celebratory firing in a wedding procession in Patiala. 48-year-old Jagtar Kaur was killed in February 2016 after a man opened fire from a revolver during a wedding ceremony in Kararwala village of Barnala district. In September 2015, five-year-old Simardeep Kaur was the victim.