17th October Ravindra Gosai the chief of one of RSS’s shakhas in Ludhiana was shot dead in broad daylight by unknown assailants. This and the murder of another Hindu leader in Amritsar meant that a total of 5 Hindu leaders were murdered in the state in the last 2 years.
Gosai’s murder case was soon transferred to the NIA which had claimed that radical Sikh elements living abroad might be behind the murder to destabilise Punjab. Before transferring the case, the Punjab police had arrested Ramandeep Singh and Hardeep Singh in connection with the murder.
Now further sensationalism has been created in this murder probe after it was reported that a suspect in this murder case was able to escape after the locals decided to attack the raiding NIA team on Sunday.
This incident happened in Gaziabad’s Nahali village where the NIA team along with the UP ATS had reached to conduct a raid on a man called Malook who is suspected of supplying arms and ammunition used in the Punjab killing.
As per a statement issued by the NIA, a large crowd consisting of men and women tried to obstruct them while they were carrying out the raid. Some people in the mob then started to fire at the investigation team and even indulged in stone pelting. The mob then also created roadblocks in order to create further troubles for the cops.
In their defence, the NIA personnel and the cops fired in the air. In this attack by the locals, Constable Tahjib Khan of the UP Police suffered a leg injury and a police vehicle was vandalised by the mob.
In the ensuing chaos, Malook managed to jump out of the police jeep to escape from the area. Efforts are on to track him.
As per the village head named Rahees Ahmed, the suspect Malook was born and brought up in this village. The NIA team arrived at about 7 AM on Sunday to nab him after which Malook and his family called out for help. Hearing this a few women came to the spot and started pelting stones on the officials.
After this incident, the cops returned to the village thrice on that day to carry out the raids. The investigators were led to this village after getting the information about Malook from a few suspects they picked up during several raids in Meerut on 2-3 November.
As per TOI, soon after the incident, the police lodged a case of attempt to murder and rioting against 7 named and 50 unnamed men, which resulted in the arrest of a man named Nazim. The Hindustan Times report though claimed that a case was filed against 150 individuals including the family members of Malook.
