Kapurthala-based property dealer Avtar Singh ended his life by shooting himself after killing his wife, son and daughter in the early morning hours on Wednesday at his residence.
Avtar Singh was a relative of Punjab’s former finance minister and senior Akali leader Dr Upinderjit Kaur. The incident took place at around 5.45 am. The 42-year-old is alleged to have taken the extreme step under “depression”. Avtar Singh ended his life by shooting himself after killing his wife, 13-year old mentally challenged son and seven-year old daughter when all of them were sleeping in a single bed-room of his house.
Avtar Singh was on the double bed with his daughter Amanat Kaur while his wife Rupinder Kaur (40), and his son Gaurav were on two folding beds laid on either side of the double bed. At around 5.45 am, Avtar Singh shot two bullets on his wife using his licensed 12 bore double barrel rifle and thereafter killed his both children. After killing his family, he called his cousin Karamjeet Singh, also related to Upinderjit Kaur, and brother-in-law Sukhraj Singh informing them both about his act.
Karamjeet Singh revealed that he said that he had killed all members of family and “now he is going to kill himself. I immediately rushed to spot. The main gate was locked and we entered the premises by scaling the walls. After entering the bed-room, we found the whole family lying dead in the bedroom along with murder-weapon”. Subsequently, Karamjeet informed the control room about the incident.
Police reached the spot to investigate the reasons and noted down the statements of Karamjeet Singh and Sukhraj Singh. Manmohan Singh Thind, the brother of deceased, was living in the neighbourhood but his family could not hear the sound of bullet fires and was also informed about the incident by Karamjeet Singh and Sukhraj Singh. SSP Kapurthala Inderbir Singh said, “We are investigating the matter from different angles. Prima-facie it appears that the extreme tensions forced the deceased to take this extreme step.” Bodies had been sent to civil hospital for post-mortem.