Victim Vikas’s mother Santalesh and sisters Pooja and Shalu at their home in Haishyampur village, in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, on Saturday. (Express Photo by Kavita Upadhyay)
On Thursday afternoon, Vikas, 19, was inspecting work of furniture-makers on the verandah of the family’s three-room house in Haishyampur village of Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district. He wanted the best work, as the furniture was to be gifted to his elder sister, Pooja, 22, whose wedding is scheduled next month, his mother, Santalesh, said on Saturday.
Within hours, around 5.30 pm, Santalesh heard three gunshots. She rushed to the agricultural fields, from where the sounds came, and found Vikas bleeding profusely from the head. He died within two hours. His father Ved Pal, 45, also shot in the head, and cousin Anit, 20, shot in the arm, were admitted at a hospital in Dehradun.
On Saturday, Sukhpal Singh, Station Officer (SO) of Haridwar’s Jhabrera police station, which has jurisdiction over the village, said, “Ved Pal has been discharged. Anit had to undergo surgery in the arm and is now stable.” Vikas’s cousin Shubham (20) said the three were returning after trying to fix water supply to a 2.5-bigha agricultural land, about 200 metres from their house, when the incident occurred — at least six people from the dominant Gujjar community in the village, opened fire at them.
Four people named in the FIR, lodged on Friday evening have been arrested: Lalit (25), Mahkar (48), Anil (38), and Amit (28). “We are trying to trace the other two – Sunil, and Sonu,” SO Singh said. According to police, the arrested people have alleged that Ved Pal was trying to “steal” water from the supply line that irrigates fields owned by the Gujjars, and an altercation resulted in the shooting. Swapn Kishore Singh, Circle Officer, Roorkee, said the arrested four were produced in court on Saturday and are in judicial custody.
A relative of Ved Pal family, Ajab Singh, however, showed many dry stumps of poplar that Ved Pal had cultivated and alleged, “The Gujjars had poured chemical on these stumps to make them dry. When Ved Pal, Anit, and Vikas asked them to stop damaging the trees, they ganged up and shot them.” With the atmosphere still tense, a dozen policemen patrolling the village to stop the situation from flaring up kept the Gujjar households out of bounds for the media, and others, on Saturday.
“All the men left the village on the day of the incident, and the women have locked themselves in their houses,” Sub-Inspector Rajan Singh, who was stopping passersby from entering the Gujjar locality, said. While Gujjars, who form 10-20 per cent of the village’s population of over 1,500, are the dominant community, and the relatively less well off Dalit form 70-80 per cent, villagers said relations between the communities have always been cordial.
“We were not on best of terms, but the relationship was never that of animosity,” Vikas’s cousin Shubham said. The village, “shocked” locals, still to come to terms with the violence, said, had never seen communal or caste clashes before Thursday evening.