Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, October 13

“I have shot your son and wife,” the accused gunman Mahipal said in a chilling phone call to Judge Krishan Kant after fleeing from the spot.

While the police officially refused to confirm anything, one of the investigating officials claimed that he had rang up two other people from the spot.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP East) Sulochna Gajraj told reporters that the accused made three calls after fleeing from the scene of the crime. Out of these, one was to his employer of two years. He then reached a police station where he fired in the air and fled before the station house officer (SHO) could nab him.

Informing them about the ghastly act, he said, “I have finally shot ‘shaitan’ and his mother.”

Unable to ascertain the motive behind the crime, the investigating officials claimed that he had been constantly talking about his recent conversion to Christianity and quoting from the Bible. He was saying that it was every Christian’s duty to eliminate demons.

“Investigations are on and we are still to know the real motive. Yes, he had been speaking about the Bible,” said Commissioner of Police KK Rao.

The shooting, meanwhile, brought to the fore the “insensitive” side of people, as many stood at the site, making videos of the accused while he was brutally dragging the judge’s son to the car rather than trying to stop him.

“We heard gunshots and thought these were fire-crackers, but soon we noticed a man in khaki with a gun in his hand. We were confused, thinking that he had shot at some criminals and did not suspect his motive. Only when we saw him dragging the boy, did we realise that something wrong had happened and shot videos to be of some help to the police,” said one of the onlookers Reema Jain.

“I saw a woman lying on the ground as unconscious and the gunman was kicking her. In the next minute, he was trying to drag and pull the boy inside the car, but when he spotted more people nearby, he left the boy on the roadside and fled from the place. I called my boss who asked me to put the shutter of the ATM booth down. Soon, the police reached there,” said ATM guard Ram Chander, the key eyewitness to the incident.