In a shocking incident, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Municipal Councillor Mohammad Akbar ‘Bholi’ was shot by unidentified assailants inside his gym in Malerkotla on Sunday. The incident came over two years after his elder brother Mohd Anwar – a Congress councillor – had also been shot dead in January 2020.
The incident has been caught on a CCTV camera which shows Akbar moving towards an alleged assailant inside a gym. As the councillor went further near, the attacker took out a pistol and fired at him. The incident reportedly took place at 8:15 am.
“Akbar had gone to the gym for a workout when he was shot dead by two unidentified persons. Further investigation is underway,” said Malerkotla SSP Avneet Kaur Sidhu said.
Malerkotla AAP MLA Jamil Ur Rehman said that Akbar was their party councillor. “We are helping police in investigation to nab the assailants,” he said.
Fifty-five years old Akbar had won his maiden municipal election on a Congress ticket in February 2021. However, ahead of 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections, he had switched allegiance to AAP. He had joined the active politics after his brother’s death.
The video footage, that went viral, shows that the youngster took out his revolver and fired at Akbar the moment the latter got close to him, and fled from the spot. Police sources claimed that the youngster was accompanied by another person and they had come to the gym on a bike. Akbar was running the gym free of cost for youngsters as he wanted them to stay away from drugs and stay fit.
Notably, Mohd Akbar’s elder brother Mohd Anwar was the owner of Rani Mahal palace where gangster Abdul Rashid Ghuddu was killed in November 2019, when Ghuddu was out on parole.