Judge’s wife says in dying declaration: Mahipal started firing when asked to hand over car keys
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Haryana Police on Monday detained personal security officer (PSO) Mahipal Singh’s mother and his cousin in connection with the murder of Additional District and Sessions (ASJ) Judge Krishan Kant Sharma’s wife and murderous attack on his son on Saturday.
The accused cop had called his cousin soon after he had opened fire on the Judge’s wife Ritu Sharma (37) and his son Dhruv (17) in the crowded Sector-49 market on Saturday. While Ritu succumbed to her injuries on Saturday night, Dhruv remains highly critical and has been put on ventilator.
Post-mortem report of slain Ritu has revealed that the PSO had hit her many times before opening fire. Ritu had sustained eight contusions on her chest, neck and face. Before breathing her last, Ritu had told her husband and another judge that Dhruv had asked Mahipal for the car keys which infuriated Mahipal who started hurling abuses at Dhruv and her. Soon after thrashed them, he started firing on them from his service weapon.
The SIT detained Mahipal’s mother Tirpati and his cousin Manoj Kumar from Kosli in Rewari district to ascertain the reasons behind the shooting.
“Mahipal had called up his cousin Manoj (23) a BSC student, soon after the incident. He told him to take his mother Tirpati from his residence at Gurugram’s police line but he didn’t share anything about the incident to Manoj,” said Mahipal’s uncle Daan Singh.
“Manoj reached Kosli along with Tirpati at around 7 pm on Saturday and around 8 pm a local police detained her and took her to Gurugram. Also, in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, they had detained my son Manoj as well. A team of police came to his house and took the duo to Gurugram stating that they were to question them in connection with the shootout,” said Daan.
The case was filed on the complaint of Additional Session’s Judge (ASJ) Krishna Kant Sharma at Sector-50 police station.
“On Saturday at about 3.30 pm while I was in the court complex during the course of my duty hours, I received a phone call from my Personnel Security Officer (PSO) Mahipal and he told me that he had shot my wife Ritu and son Dhruv. On this, I immediately informed my colleagues and when one of them, RK Mehta, called my wife’s number. It was answered by an unknown man who said she and a boy had been brought to Park Hospital with gunshot injuries. We all immediately rushed to Park Hospital”, ASJ Sharma wrote in his complaint to police.
“There, my wife, Ritu told me that she along with son Dhruv reached Arcadia market and asked PSO Mahipal to wait near the car and thereafter when they returned, Dhruv asked him to hand over the keys of Honda City car on which he got angry. He then shouted and without any provocation rushed towards them and fired at her. When Dhruv came to her rescue, he shot him also,” ASJ Sharma claimed in his compliant to police and First Information Report (FIR) was registered.
Meanwhile, throughout Monday the SIT officials as well as senior police officials were tight-lipped and didn’t share anything with the media about the PSO’s interrogation and detention of his family members. Police are yet to ascertain the motive behind the shooting which had shocked the city.
Also, SIT is looking into Mahipal’s post on Facebook the night prior to the killing some strange scribbling on a piece of paper, mentioning ‘Pastor Robin’. What has made police suspicious is that he wrote two words starting with the letters ‘R’ and ‘D’ and then crossed these.
Furthermore, on Monday the family members of ASJ took the body of his wife to her native place in Hisar for performing the last rites.
“Mahipal, a humanities graduate, had joined Haryana Police in 2007. Between 2015 and 16, he was posted with Chandigarh based judge and completed his commando training. Mahipal had come on September 23 to celebrate his younger brother Manoj’s birthday party and was very happy. In the past, he didn’t share anything about conversion to Christianity and any harassment by the Judge’s family. Yes, he used to visit a church every Sunday located in Gurugram. It could be a sudden provocation incident that why he took such an extreme step,” his uncle said.
“The interrogation of the accused is underway. It is early to disclose anything at this stage. He is changing his statement frequently. SIT is probing it from all possible angles. The accused will be produced before the court by October 18,” said P K Agrawal, Director General of Haryana Police (Crime).
