Diwali night shooting in Manesar: Fourth kin of former sarpanch dies

GURUGRAM: A fourth person hit by a bullet during the indiscriminate firing at the house of a former sarpanch of a Manesar village on Diwali night succumbed to injuries in a private hospital on Monday. The former sarpanch’s two sons and another relative had died earlier.
Family members of Balram Singh, the ex-sarpanch’s cousin who died on Monday, protested outside the hospital gate and refused to take the body unless police arrested the main accused. So far, eight persons have been arrested in connection with the murder. They had allegedly given shelter to the main accused, who is from the same Kasan village as the former sarpanch and is still on the run..
Around 8pm on Diwali, three men had barged into the house of ex-sarpanch Gopal and fired indiscriminately at his family members who were performing Lakshmi puja. While two of his sons had died on the spot, a third relative passed away three days later. After Balram’s death on Monday, two persons, including an eight-year-old boy, are being treated for injuries in the hospital.
The shooting, police had said, was the fallout of an enmity between two families in the village dating back to 2007. That year, the two sons of Gopal and another relative had shot dead one Manoj, a villager. The two sons were handed life imprisonment. A few years ago, when they came out on bail, Yogender, the elder brother of Manoj, hatched a conspiracy to kill them.
Sanjay Singh, a relative of Balram, said all the accused had been identified from CCTV footage. “Yet they are not being arrested. All of them have criminal backgrounds,” he added.
ACP (crime) Preet Pal Sangwan said they had arrested eight persons till now and hoped to nab the others soon. “Those who have been arrested till now were part of the larger conspiracy. They had given shelter to the main accused,” the ACP said.