Hotelier a polite, professional man: Colleagues
SHIMLA: The shooting down of assistant town and country planner Shail Bala at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh during a Supreme Court mandated drive to demolish illegal structures has left the colleagues and acquaintances of the alleged killer, Vijay Thakur, in shock.
Thakur, the owner of Narayani guest house and also an employee of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB), fired at least three bullets at Sharma from a revolver at around 2.33pm following an altercation with her. He is absconding after the incident.
“Vijay was very professional,” said PK Kohli, director (civil), HPSEB, with whom Thakur, 54, worked as assistant private secretary. “I never found anything wrong with his conduct.
Adding “there could have been some complaints against him,” Kohli said “no one ever came up to me.”
Sarj (who goes by one name) and is senior private secretary to Kohli, sharing office, finds “it hard to believe that Vijay could have done this. He did not talk loudly to anyone, not even the peon, nor did he brag about his background as a hotelier.”
Thakur joined the HPSEB in 1985 and was appointed additional private secretary to the director (civil) in 2013.
From Mandoh Markanda village in Kasauli, Thakur, however, used to talk about frequent quarrels with another hotel owner in the neighbourhood, said a colleague, who did not want his name mentioned. He is also known to have had an altercation over parking with another hotelier on a plot next to their hotels, the colleague added.
Meanwhile, the hunt for Thakur intensified with police forces fanning out in Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur districts and asking police forces in the neighbouring states to help.
The director general of police Sita Ram Mardi also announced a reward of ₹1 lakh on Tuesday evening for information on his whereabouts.
The police, meanwhile, are trying to ascertain how Thakur got the license for the revolver used to kill Shail Bala. “It was a 3.2 bore licensed pistol, we are trying to find out how he got the license and from where the weapon was purchased,” superintendent of police (Solan) Mohit Chawla said .
A probe has also been launched against the policemen who accompanied Shail Bala for the demolition drive.
The Supreme Court had on April 17 given a deadline of 15 days to hotel owners to demolish illegal structures and fined them ₹15 lakh each.
A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta had observed that some hotels and resorts were supposed to construct only two-storey buildings but built six-storey ones instead.
“You just demolish it (unauthorised construction). What is going on? You are admitting that you were supposed to make only two-storeyed buildings. There was a landslide in your premises and you did nothing. You are putting the life of people in danger. For what? Money,” the bench had observed.
SAY NEVER SPOKE LOUDLY EVEN TO PEONS, FIND HIS ROLE IN THE KILLING ‘HARD TO BELIEVE’