Liquor contractor shot dead on national highway near Kurukshetra  

Unidentified assailants fatally shot a liquor contractor at Shahabad in Haryana’s Kurukshetra district, police said on Saturday. Shantanu was shot dead near Meena Market on the national highway in Shahabad, 20 km from here, on Friday evening, they said.

The victim briefly stopped his car to buy some items when two men on a sports bike pumped seven bullets into him, the police said. Eyewitnesses told police that the attackers fired about eight rounds before fleeing. As panic spread on the busy highway, bystanders attempted to stop the shooters, who abandoned their bike, ran across the road, snatched a motorcycle at gunpoint and fled towards Ambala on the wrong side of the highway.

Shantanu was rushed to Adesh Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

SP Nitish Aggarwal said that he reached the crime scene with a police team along with DSP Ram Kumar and Shahabad SHO Satish Kumar. A case has been registered, and security has been tightened with blockades on all major routes and city borders as the search for the killers continues, he said. The SP said the victim, originally from a village in Jhajjar district, had been living in Shahabad for sometime.

Investigators have collected forensic evidence, questioned the shopkeepers and have begun scanning CCTV footage from Meena Market and its nearby areas, the officer said.

The police have found some clues and are hopeful for a breakthrough in the matter soon, he said.

Checking has been intensified along the borders with Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, with multiple teams having been dispatched to the nearby regions, including Ambala, Saha and Barara.

A police officer said preliminary investigation suggested the murder could be linked to an old rivalry or a dispute in liquor trade.

Haryana Tribune