LUDHIANA: Four workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party were among the 18 persons, mostly shopkeepers, gunned down by some gunmen in two localities of Bhagwan Nagar and Vishvakarma colony in Ludhiana city on last Saturday night. They are believed to have been killed for taking part in the February 19 poll.
“The police believe the killings to be the handiwork of Babbar Khalsa, and put the number of culprits at half-a-dozen, who divided themselves into two or three groups before spraying bullets. A visit to the affected shops on Sunday revealed that the firing was not indiscriminate. At least in Bhagwan Nagar locality the tar gets were clearly selected.
Those killed in Bhagwan Nagar were the BJP ward president Ram Sarup Prashar, his brother Kashmiri Lal, and partner KhairatiLal, neighbor Karamjit Singh, Sant Ram and Surinder Kumar. The first four of these were watching television at the TV shop belonging to Ram Sarup, Kashmiri Lal and Khairati Lal.
The other deceased have been identified as GirdhariLal, Inderjit, Sukhdev Kumar, Vijay Kumar, Jagdish Kumar, Romesh Kumar, Raj Kumar, Rajinder Singh, Deepak Chopra and Kedar. Most of them were shot in Vishvakarma colony.
Those who were injured are Inderjit Nanna, Rajesh Sharma, Romesh Kumar, Bhag Singh, Atma Ram and Satnam Singh,
The residents disclosed that they had prior information that militants may strike in the locality as they had received some threats a few days ago. These threats were duly brought to the notice of the Local police authorities but the later failed to take notice and beef up security or patrolling in the area, they said in anger.
It was a most daring massacre in two thickly populated localities situated near Dhaliwal Chowk.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 27, 1992
