CHANDIGARH: Vikas Chaudhary, spokesman of Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC), was shot dead outside a gym in Faridabad on Thursday.
The incident occurred in Sector 9 when the 42-year old Congress leader came out of the gym around 9.15 am and was about to sit in his SUV. As at least two men came and started firing at him indiscriminately. One person fired at him through the windshield of the vehicle and one from the driver’s side. They fired more than a dozen bullets at Chaudhary from close range. Then these unidentified armed youth, who had arrived in a Maruti Suzuki SX4 car, fled away in the vehicle, which was parked nearby.
Chaudhary was immediately taken to a hospital in Sector 8, where he was declared brought dead. His body has been sent for a post-mortem. Chaudhary was considered close to Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar. The police have obtained CCTV footage of the area and a manhunt has been launched to arrest the accused.
It is not clear from the CCTV footage if the accused followed Vikas to the gym or waited for him outside. But it shows that two men were dropped outside the gym in a car when Vikas parked his SUV before going to the gym, said sources.
Chaudhary had joined the Congress in 2015. He was earlier in the Indian National Lok Dal. Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar said that there was no fear of law in the state. “We want proper investigation of this incident and the perpetrators of this crime should be brought to justice at the earliest,” he said.