CHANDIGARH: Unknown assailants murdered 65-year-old journalist Karamjit Singh and his 92-year-old mother Gurcharan Kaur at their Mohali residence on Saturday. Police found Kaur’s body lying on the bed in her bedroom. She was reportedly strangled. Singh’s body was found lying in a pool of blood in another room. His throat was slit and there were wounds on his abdomen, indicating that he was stabbed. Police said he may have been stabbed twice or thrice with a sharp-edged weapon. Also, the chairs and tables were pushed to the corners in both the rooms, indicating that the victims resisted the attackers.
Items in all other rooms are intact and nothing has been touched, police said. The attackers stole Singh’s car. Apart from that, a small television, which Singh used to keep in his room, his wallet and mobile phone are also missing. As Singh was not married, he had been living with his mother in the house, which was built by his father.
When one of his sisters arrived at the house on Saturday, she saw blood on the main door. “We first thought that my grandmother might have fallen down so my uncle might have taken her to hospital as the car was not there in the driveway. When we went inside, we found both of them lying dead. I then called the police,’’ said Singh’s nephew, who accompanied his mother.
Sources said Singh spoke to one of his relatives at around 7.27 pm on Friday night. On the directions of Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, the Punjab Police have set up a Special Investigative Team to probe the incident.
Senior superintendent of police of SAS Nagar, Kuldeep Singh Chahal said the police is probing all aspects. However, he ruled out theft as the motivation for the murders.
Sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not rule-out that it could be an insider’s job.
Additional DGP (Crime) Parmod Kumar who visited the spot said, “It’s blind murder and we have few leads. It seems they were murdered at around 8 pm Friday.’’
Both the bodies have been sent for postmortem. They will be cremated on Sunday.
Singh, who was born on October 14, 1952 in Rohtak town of Haryana, joined the Indian Express in 1978. Later, he joined the Times of India. He has also worked for the Tribune and retired its chief news editor in 2009. Singh’s murder comes just two weeks after 55-year-old senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead by unidentified assailants outside her residence in Bengaluru.