Inquiry into encounter begins

ABOHAR: Nakhat Daan Barhat, additional district magistrate (ADM) of Sriganganagar in Rajasthan, on Monday commenced a magisterial probe into the encounter of gangsters Vicky Gounder and Prema Lahoriya and one of their accomplices by the a team of Punjab police in a village in Hindumalkot subdivision on Friday.

Barhat visited the village Pakki and recorded the statements of residents. “We found movement of some unknown persons in the hamlet near the village over 10 days, and when we asked Lakhwinder Singh Lakha (who allegedly gave shelter to the gangsters), he said they were his relatives,” one of the villagers is learnt ti have told the officer. More than 10 people’s statements were recorded, and policemen of Punjab too were asked for it.

Samples collected by the forensic team from Bikaner from the spot were, meanwhile, sent to a lab in Jaipur. Punjab’s most wanted gangster Harjinder Singh, alias Vicky Gounder, and his aide Prema Lahoriya were killed in an encounter while Sawinder Singh, another aide of Gounder, died of his injuries at the civil hospital in Abohar, 30km from the spot, in Punjab’s Fazilka district. The spot was barely 50 metres across the state border.

NILABH KISHORE, INSPECTOR GENRAL, UNIT IN-CHARGE

In-charge of Organised Crime Control Unit, Kishore is counted among the low profile but highly-efficient officers of Punjab Police. He was the one responsible for connecting the dots of the distorted, halfbaked information available with the intelligence wing of the state police. DGP Suresh Arora and DGP (intelligence) Dinkar Gupta gave him a free hand in chasing Gounder.

BIKRAM BRAR, INSPECTOR

A ‘dabang’ and daredevil police officer, Brar can be called the real hero of the operation as he was the first to enter Gounder’s hideout.