Guwahati, July 08: Assam Police on Thursday gunned down an alleged contract killer wanted in at least two murder cases at Chirang district in western Assam in yet another incident of custodial shooting when, Police said the accused attempted to escape stealing officer’s gun.
This is the second incident of Police firing at an accused in custody this week while a seasoned cattle lifter was shot on leg earlier in the week at Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district. Assam police has 14 instances of shooting at under custody accused who, according to police, attempted to escape since June 1. Of these, two, including the Chirang incident, have died while the rest have injuries to various non-vital organs.
The deceased, 20-year-old Abdul Khaleque, was arrested in connection to the brutal murder of homeguard deputed to Bijni Police Station Iyad Ali, who was stabbed several times with dao (machete) on the night of last Tuesday along with another, allegedly, Ayub Ali (20) on the contract of Safiyur Rehman, a pharmacist in Bhandara, about 6.5 km from Bijni.
“In our investigation, we found that Safiur Rehman, due to a personal animosity, had put out a contract of Rs 1.5 lakh against homeguard Iyad and got him killed by the two contract killers Ayub and Abdul,” Chirang SP Gaurav Upadhyay told media on Thursday.
Regarding the crime, Upadhyay said, “On the night of incident, Abdul, who is a seasoned criminal, along with Ayub ambushed Iyad near Bhandara. There Ayub, a first time offender made the first stab with the dao, and returned back to his home and hid the weapon.
Abdul, on the other hand, finished the job, wiped the dao clean with a handkerchief, threw it away and stashed the weapon at Ayub’s place.”
On the night of Wednesday, a team of police, guided by the two accused who were arrested on Wednesday itself, went to retrieve the weapon used for murder.
“After finding the weapons, we had to retrieve the handkerchief with which abdul claimed to have wiped the dao as it had victim’s blood stains. While taking the police there, Abdul seized gun from a Bijni SDPO and pointed at police, to which a retaliatory firing was done by police aiming at his non vital organs,” Upadhyay said.
Abdul was immediately rushed to the nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead.
Abdul had served sentence for murdering his wife and burying her body in his courtyard.
Meanwhile, both the pharmacist Saidur and Ayub are in police custody.
On July 3, an accused in a kidnapping case, Kunwaldeep Singh Sidhu was shot dead when police said he tried to attempt escape by seizing an official’s service gun at Karbi Anglong.
