Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

HC raises concern over gangster violence in tricity

- Surender Sharma surender.sharma@htlive.com

CHANDIGARH: Taking a strong note of rising gangster culture in the tricity, the Punjab and Haryana high court observed that once known for academic achievemen­ts, the area is now being rapidly turned into a “hostile city”.

“..this court is perturbed over the manner in which such goons trotting with firearms pervade the tricity and gangsters have come to settle here, and such steep number of such incidents in the area is a strong circumstan­ce for this court to take a strong view of the incident,” the bench of justice Fatehdeep Singh said, while rejecting anticipato­ry bail plea of an accused in a firing incident reported outside Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, in January this year.

The HC bench further added that the FIR’s content was strongly suggestive that the accused as well as the complainan­t side are young boys who have formed gangs and are trying to create an atmosphere of threat to society to lay their claim of supremacy and bravado.

Ludhiana resident Jagtar Singh, aka Jaggi, 23, had told police that on January 10, he and a friend, Samar Bhat, had come to GMCH to meet a friend admitted there when four to five men attacked them and fled after firing gunshots. A passerby was shot in the arm.

The incident was allegedly the result of Bhat’s standoff with the accused youths over a TikTok video. Police subsequent­ly arrested a Kharar resident besides the youth who had opened fire.

The HC order came on the plea of Nishan Singh Khera, one of the co-accused whose car was allegedly used to flee. He had produced a compromise deed document effected by both parties in this case. Rejecting the plea, the court said it has to invoke its extraordin­ary powers “sparingly” and the compromise was to “stifle” the investigat­ions.

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