Four people including a 12-year-old girl were critically injured after a group of persons opened fire at them in a restaurant following an argument with its owner in East Delhi’s Krishna Nagar area on late Monday.
Police have registered a case under relevant Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and launched a search to nab the accused who are on the run. The injured have been identified as Sunil (30), who is an employee at the restaurant, three relatives of the owners namely Suman (12), Gopal (63) and Ratan Singh (70). Police said that Suman and Ratan are said to be in a critical condition and are admitted at Max hospital in IP Extension.
The brawl took place on Monday night, when a boy who works at Sahil Properties in Krishna Nagar area went to buy food from Royal India Restaurant located in the same locality. The restaurant is owned by one Ashish Raghav, police said.
“The boy had an argument with Ashish after which he went back to his office and called about a dozen from there for help,” said a senior police officer, adding, “While some of them started beating the restaurant staff, one whipped out a pistol and began firing indiscriminately.”
Sunil and Suman, present inside the restaurant, were shot at. The assailants then returned to the property dealing office. Sources said they were consuming liquor inside the property dealer’s office. Sources also claimed that the accused were gambling on the India-South Africa T-20 match which was being telecasted on Monday.
“Agitated with the audacity of the miscreants a few locals, including Ratan Singh, gathered outside the office to challenge the accused, however, they reopened firing, this time injuring Ratan and Gopal,” added the officer.
As more crowd started gathering at the spot, all accused fled the scene. The angry residents broke two cars-Fortuner and Swift Dzire parked outside the office in protest and a PCR call was made.
The police said that all injured were rushed to a nearby hospital from where Suman and Ratan were referred to Max Hospital.
A case of attempt-to-murder has been registered at the Krishna Nagar police station and hunt for the absconding accused is on. Police have collected the CCTV footage from the area to identify the persons. At least 20-25 rounds were fired in the incident. Police have recovered five cartridges from the spot.