Barnala police cracks Himanshu Dania murder case

BARNALA: The Barnala police has succeeded in cracking the murder case of Himanshu Dania, partner in liquor contractor firm, by arresting two persons.
Both arrested persons, identified as Sukhpal Singh(35) and Karamjit Singh(26) of village Dhanoula confessed the crime. They confessed their aim was snatching but Himanshu was killed as they were scared and pulled trigger of the country-made pistol. Himanshu(27) was killed when he was returning after collecting cash from liquor vend on the intervening night of July 5-6 near Barnala bus stand and assailants had decamped with cash bag containing over Rs 5 lakh.

The Barnala police was under huge pressure to crack the case. The town residents held protests at least twice in the month demanding from police to arrest the guilty persons.

Exactly a year ago, Himanshu' father Swatantar Dania, deputy district education officer, had died in a road accident on July 6, 2017.

At the time of his father's death, A BTech computer science pass-out Himanshu was working with an IT firm at Gurugram. He left the job to settle at Barnala with his ailing mother who was left alone after losing her husband. He had put some share in a liquor firm at Barnala and used to collect cash for the firm.

Barnala SSP Harjit Singh talking to media persons on Saturday evening said that "cracking this case was a challenge for the police as there was no eyewitness of the crime. Earlier it was presumed as probable case of alleged rivalry into liquor contractor which it was actually not. A special investigation team headed by SP(investigations) Sukhdev Singh Virk was formed comprising DSP Rajesh Chhiber and CIA in charge Baljit Singh. The SIT investigating from nearly 1,500 persons including workers of liquor contractors and those who had come out of jail either on parole or bail during this period. Police took footage from nearly 50 CCTV cameras".

Sourced said initially investigations was not fetching anything and police called CIA in charge Baljit Singh from leave and investigations got to some leads. During investigations, the SIT found that Sukhpal, who was member of gangster Gurmeet Singh Kala Dhanoula group, had worked for few days in April this year with the liquor contractor. But when contractor got to know about his criminal past, he was retrenched. He faced 12 cases of attempt to murder, excise and NDPS whereas Karam faced three cases of Excise Act.

Himanshu's mother Neeraja Dania, who was present during press conference, said that I have lost everything by losing my son after husband. As police have now arrested the persons who killed my son, I only want death sentence for them."

Sukhpal when presented before media briefly only said that they only wanted to snatch money and did not want to kill but bullet was fired as they were scared. They had done recce for 4 days to know timing of the cash collection.