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SC takes cognisance of Kasauli killing

The Supreme Court on Wednesday took suo motu cognisance of the firing incident in Kasauli where a woman government official…

SC takes cognisance of Kasauli killing

Supreme Court of India (Photo: IANS/File)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday took suo motu cognisance of the firing incident in Kasauli where a woman government official was shot dead allegedly by a hotel owner after she had gone to seal an unauthorised construction in his property on the apex court’s direction.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta termed the incident as extremely serious, saying the government officials had gone there to comply with the court’s direction to seal unauthorised constructions.

Assistant Town and Country Planner Shailbala Sharma had on 1 May gone to seal unauthorised constructions in Kasauli’s Narayani guest house where its owner Vijay Singh allegedly shot at her. She later succumbed to injuries.
“We might stop passing any orders if you are going to kill people,” the bench observed after the issue was mentioned before it.

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The bench, while taking suo motu cognizance of the incident, said the matter be placed before Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra for assigning it before an appropriate bench on Thursday.

The apex court also questioned as to what the police team, which had accompanied government officials during the sealing drive was doing when the hotel owner allegedly shot at the woman.

The counsel representing Himachal Pradesh informed the bench that the accused had fled from the spot after opening fire at government officials and besides the deceased, an official of the Public Works Department was also injured in the incident.

Meanwhile, a day after the murder of the 51-year-old Shail Bala Sharma, the demolition of unauthorized structures of hotels and resorts in Kasauli continued on Wednesday.

Superintendent of Police, Law and Order Khushal Sharma said the demolitions of authorized constructions continued for the second day today as per the orders of Supreme Court of India.

“A hunt is on to nab the accused, Vijay Singh who had fired upon officials while they carrying out SC orders and had resulted in the death of Shail Bala while another official sustained serious injuries,” he said.

Police officials said the demolitions began amid tight security today and police personnel from Junga Battalion have been deployed to thwart any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, the mother of the accused, Narayani Devi (70) told media that her son was disturbed since the last few days and they did everything what the authorities had told them to.

However, she denied any knowledge as to who opened fire at the officials that resulted in the death of the Town and Country Planning department (TCP) official.

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