Landlord of the building at DLF-3 pushed his tenant

GURUGRAM: A 20-year-old student fell to his death on Wednesday night from the fifth floor balcony of a building in DLF-3 where he stayed as a paying guest after allegedly being pushed by the landlord and his sons during an argument over water shortage and power outages on the premises.Ramesh Singh Bisht, who died of injuries he suffered in the fall, was from Haldwani in Uttarakhand and had come to Gurugram just a week ago. He took up residence in the six-storey building, which is a paying guest facility, along with four of his friends, who were also injured in the attack. The five joined a batch of 15 for a vocational course in food and beverages management from a private institute under a government scheme.Police said a total of 15 people, including outsiders summoned by the owner of the building during the argument, have been booked. Two of them have also been arrested but the prime suspects — the building’s owner Satbir Singh and his sons — are on the run. They have all been charged with murder, rioting and other sections of the IPC.Bisht and his friends had been complaining to Singh about the water and power situation for the last three to four days, police said. This apparently led to a souring of relations between them and Singh, and triggered the fight on Wednesday night when Singh came to their fifth floor room and asked them to shift to another room.In his complaint to the police, Neeraj Singh Panwar, one of Bisht’s friends, said, “Around 11.30pm on Wednesday, when we were in our room, Singh came and asked all of us to move to the other room. He was drunk. When we objected, an argument started. Then the owner called his two sons — Rahul and Rohit — and 12 others, and all of them started thrashing us with sticks. They pushed Bisht and he fell from the balcony.”Singh, the victim’s roommates alleged, also threatened to kill them if they did not move out the next morning. Panwar and the others rushed Bisht to a private hospital, where he was declared brought dead. “We want strict action against the Singh and the others,” Panwar said.Dr Deepak Mathur, who conducted the autopsy, said Bisht had suffered multiple fractures and broken ribs and sustained serious head injuries. An FIR was registered against Singh and 14 others under sections 302 (murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC at DLF-2 police station.Police said the two men they had arrested were Sheeshram and Sunil. “They were accomplices of Singh, who is absconding along with the rest of his family after the incident. We are conducting raids to nab the other accused,” said inspector Sudip Kumar, the SHO.Bisht’s father Ratan Singh, a retired Army havildar, said he was youngest of his five children. “After completing his 12th standard, he had joined the hospitality course and came to Gurugram on June 28, but his dreams remained incomplete. We cannot believe he is no more. We want the accused to be severely punished,” he said.Suraj Joshi, another roommate of Bisht, said that they were thrashed only because they had been asking for water and electricity. “We are shocked. We feel threatened and have shifted to another PG,” he said. “We first met the PG owner on July 1, and then again the next day but because of his rude behaviour, we subsequently reminded him of the problems were only by text messages.”Police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said, “Our teams, including crime units, are on job and all the accused will be arrested soon.”Other students in Bisht’s batch also lived in the same building. Laxmikant Uniyal, a trainer at the institute they are enrolled in, said they had found the accommodation through a local brokerage service and the institute was not aware of the incident.