Man’s body found in canal, kin say liquor mafia killed him

PATIALA: Almost a week after his family lodged a missing report, the body of Sukhwinder Singh, 25, of Shadipur Momian village, was recovered from the canal’s Khanuari head in Sangrur district on Wednesday. Sukhwinder’s father, Pappu Ram, has accused henchmen of the local wine contractor for thrashing his son and throwing his body in the canal.

“The liquor mafia suspected my sons, Sukhwinder and Gurpal Singh, 23, of smuggling liquor from Haryana. On June 14, goons of the local liquor contractor intercepted them near Jhill village and thrashed them,” Ram alleged. He added that Sukwinder had been missing since then, while Gurpal had returned. “No liquor was recovered on them,” he added.

Shutrana SHO Darshan Singh said, “Now, on a fresh complaint from the victim’s family after the recovery of the body, a case has been registered against unidentified people under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.” He added that the postmortem report had listed drowning as the primary cause of death. Meanwhile, alleging that the police were delaying taking action and demanding immediate arrest, the family and relatives staged a protest.

FOURTH MURDER IN A WEEK

With the police registering a murder case after the recovery of Sukhwinder’s body, the district has seen four murders over the past week. On June 15, a 12-yearold boy was found hanging from a hook in the backyard of his house in a village under Ghagga police station.

The police have declared this as a murder and booked three people. On June 17, armed robbers murdered two petrol pump employees on the Patiala-Zirakpur national highway.