chandigarh

Updated: Dec 06, 2019 01:01 IST

A 31-year-old woman teacher, Sarabjit Kaur, was shot dead in front of her five-year-old daughter outside The Knowledge Bus Global School, where she taught, at Sunny Enclave, Sector 125 in Kharar town of Mohali district on Thursday morning.

The woman’s estranged husband has emerged as the prime suspect in the case, police said. “Victim’s husband is the prime suspect as his phone is switched off and is absconding. She had lodged a police complaint against him recently alleging that he had cheated on her,” said SP (investigation), Mohali,

Harmandeep Singh Hans.

Police, however, have booked an unidentified person for the murder on the complaint of victim’s father. A blurred CCTV camera footage shows a gun-wielding man, whose face is covered with a shawl, running away from the crime spot.

Sarabjit had arrived to join her duty at 8am and was parking her scooter near the school gate when an unidentified man fired three shots at her, killing her on the spot. She was shot from a point blank range. The victim joined the school as a French and Punjabi teacher in April this year.

“She took three bullets — one on the left side of her face, another below her neck and one in the stomach,” police said.

Her five-year-old daughter Aradhya, a KG student in the school, the eyewitness to the crime, ran away in panic towards the school gate. Sarabjit was rushed to the Mohali civil hospital where the doctors declared her brought dead. Sarabjit’s family member, including his father, mother and brother, were present at the hospital.

Strained marriage

Police said Sarabjit got married to one Harvinder Singh, 35, a travel agent from Barnala, in 2012.

“Sarabjit married Harvinder against the wishes of her family. She, along with Harvinder moved to France in 2013. She had come back to India in 2018,” police said.

As per the police, in France Sarabjit came to know that Harvinder was already married there and had a daughter. “Sarabjit gave birth to a daughter in France. However, the relations between Sarabjit and Harvinder got sour due to his earlier marriage and finally she returned from France in 2018. She patched up with her parents and started living in her father’s flat at SBP Homes in Chajju Majra in Mohali,” said a police official.

Sarabjit had filed for divorce from Harvinder only four months ago.

“It is not possible that someone will come and attack randomly. She was being tracked. It appears a planned murder,” police said.

An eyewitness, wishing not be identified, said, “Two men had arrived in a white Ford car and parked the vehicle on the roadside, a few metres away from the crime spot. One of the men got down from the car, fired at the woman and ran away,” he said.

“We are investigating the case and the guilty will be arrested soon,” said Kharar Sadar SHO Amandeep Singh. A case under Section 302 (murder), and 25, 54, 59 of the Arms Act has been registered.

The body was handed over to the victim’s parents after the postmortem.