Closing in on 2 killers of SOI leader Vicky Middukhera: Mohali Cops

Mohali, September 11

The police claim to have identified two of the four killers of SOI leader Vicky Middukhera. Mohali SSP Satinder Singh said: “Two of the four assailants are gangsters involved in various incidents in the past. One of them belongs to Haryana while the other is from Delhi. Our teams are actively pursuing them and it is just a matter of time that they will be nabbed.”

Whether the murder is a case of contract killing or personal rivalry is yet to be established, he added.

Middukhera was shot dead in broad daylight in Mohali on August 7. Four armed men fired around 10 bullets at the young leader in the Sector 71 market around 10.30 am before fleeing the spot. He tried to run away from the spot when two youths opened fire at him, but the assailants fired more bullets at him.

From Day 1, the police have been probing the case from the gang-war angle among others. The police believe Lucky Khuda Lahora, a gangster lodged in a jail of Armenia, to be one of the prime suspects. They have been conducting raids in Haryana, Delhi and other places and rounding up suspects to get leads. The police have questioned several gangsters and suspects lodged in various jails of Punjab. Now, they have shifted their focus on to gangsters active outside Punjab. “Two of them are not from Punjab; the identity of the other two is being worked out,” he said.

After the incident, the police said the assailants were spotted in CCTV footage in which they were fleeing in a white car towards Delhi on the Chandigarh-Delhi highway near Ambala. Hours after the murder, the Davinder Bambiha group had claimed they murdered Middukhera over personal reasons. A day later, the Lawrence Bishnoi group vowed to avenge his death.

Middukhera had played an active role in supporting Bishnoi and Nehra in student politics around 2010. —TNS