Haryana Congress leader and spokesperson Vikas Chaudhary was shot dead by unknown assailants at the car parking of a gym in Faridabad on Thursday.
The incident took place around 9 am, when Vikas (42) was parking his car outside the gym in Sector 9, Faridabad. The assailants fired on his car from both sides and later, managed to flee. The incident has stirred a political row in the state with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and senior party leaders lashing out at the Haryana Government over the deteriorating law and order situation.
According to the Police, Vikas was hit by over 10 bullets and CCTV footage of the incident showed masked men raining shots on his car. No arrest was made in the case till the filing of this report.
Haryana ADGP (Law & Order) Navdeep Singh Virk said that the murder case appeared to be connected to Vikas’ criminal background.
“Severe police teams have been deployed to crack the case and Faridabad Police is confident of detecting it soon. CP Faridabad is personally supervising the investigation,” Virk tweeted. “As per the leads so far, Vikas Chaudhary had a criminal background and 13 FIRs of extortion, kidnapping, attempt to murder etc were regd. against him since 2007 in HY & UP. His murder appears to be connected to his own criminal background (sic), he added.
A police officer informed that as many as 12 spent cartridges were found on the incident spot. Upon hearing the noise, people rushed to the site and Chaudhary was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, he said.
The Congress leader was alone at the time of the incident and bullets hit his neck and chest, he said
A case has been registered and police are scanning the CCTV footage to identify the accused, the officer said. He added that the attack appears to be pre-planned and the assailants, who came in a vehicle knew that Vikas would come to the gym.
After the murder of Congress leader, protest was held by party workers in Faridabad, where they demanded immediate arrest of culprits. Reacting to the incident, Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala said that it is an unfortunate incident and assured that the culprits will be nabbed soon.