A 42-year-old man employed by a private company in Singapore was allegedly shot dead by his neighbour with a licenced pistol in a parking dispute in Sector 21C on Friday night, police said on Saturday.
Paramjeet Dhankhar was killed when the accused (Monu Sharma alias Mohan) allegedly fired around 15 rounds at him. Nine of the bullets hit Dhankhar, who died on the spot. The main accused has been arrested.
Dhankhar’s family live on the first floor of a residential building in the sector, and Sharma lives on the 3rd floor of the same building. The two families have been at odds over a dog defecating in the parking area and various vehicle-related parking issues.
On Friday night, Dhankhar came back from the gym and asked Sharma to move his car out of its parking space. Sharma is said to have opened fire in response. The accused then absconded with his family. Police arrived after Dhankhar’s son, Shaurya, informed them and picked up the cartridge cases from the spot.
Dhankhar (who was in Singapore) had come to India on the 5th of November to celebrate Diwali with his family. He was also due to attend his nephew’s wedding on 24 November.
Acting on a complaint from Shaurya, police have registered a case against Monu Sharma (alias Mohan), his wife Divya, his son Mayank, his daughter Naina and his brother Hetram. Dhankhar’s body has been handed over to the civil hospital for post-mortem.
“We have arrested the main accused, Monu Sharma, and are questioning him,” said Surajkund police station Station House Officer (SHO) Prahlad Singh. They are going through the sequence of events that led to the firing and the role of the other family members in the case.
According to police, the incident took place in a fairly densely populated residential pocket of Sector 21C (where parking is always a problem and there’s a lot of shared common space). Several cartridge cases were recovered at the scene, consistent with the statement that several rounds had been fired from a licensed weapon. Police are checking the pistol’s ownership and licensing.
Dhankhar was back in the building on the night of the incident, having come back from Singapore for the holidays. His son’s immediate complaint enabled police to track down and arrest Sharma after the family left the building. The case has been registered under the appropriate sections of the law relating to murder and associated offences, and the investigation is now into the exact circumstances of the argument and the shooting.
Police are still questioning the arrested accused. They have not yet provided further details on the recovery of the weapon or the status of the other people named in the complaint. The post-mortem will confirm the number and nature of the injuries to Dhankhar, a police official involved in the investigation of the murder said.