Same weapon Same day: What message exterminator sends?
Who killed Hindu Leaders? still unexplainable, baffling, puzzling The killings are severe mystery and the recent revealing shows that they were all done by one weapon and took place on Saturdays.Read complete coverage of times of India.
Managing Editor
S. Jigarjit Singh
The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Chandigarh has found that the same .32 bore revolver was used in three out of four killings of Hindu leaders in Punjab between 2016 and 2017. CFSL has reached this conclusion after examining shells recovered from the site of the killings.No headway has been made in any of the cases despite cops having CCTV footage in which the killers are seen although their faces are covered.
“On thorough examination and inter-comparison of individual characteristic marks present on the fired cartridge cases under the comparison microscope, I came to the conclusion that the 7.65mm cartridge cases in parcel 1 (Khanna dera followers' killing) and parcel 5 (Ludhiana Amit Sharma killing) have been fired through one and the same firearm,“ a report by a CFSL official says.
The report was submitted to Bureau of Investigation (BOI) wing and Punjab Police's intelligence wing two weeks ago.
The killings had started on August 6, 2016, when prominent RSS leader Brigadier V P Gagneja was shot dead in Jalandhar. A Hindu Takht leader Amit Sharma was then killed near Jagraon on January 14, 2017. Then on February 25, 2017, two Dera Sacha Sauda followers were shot dead inside the canteen of Nam Charcha Ghar near Khanna.
The forensic experts have said that three bullets from the three killings have the same markings. The characteristics of bullets look like a bar code due to the pattern of striations and scratches on them caused by the imperfections in the surface of gun barrels. They are visible only when viewed through a microscope.
“It is this feature of the fired bullets that help identify them if they have been fired from the same weapon or a different one,“ the senior CFSL official said in his report. The report has also found that the injury marks on the bodies of these men reveal that the bullets were fired at close range. This has been confirmed by the charring of skin and scorching and blackening of the skin around the wounds.
Although the forensic experts refused to confirm if these were professional hits, a senior cop of Punjab Police said most contract killers are trained to kill at close range to avoid missing their targets.
Interestingly , both BOI and Punjab Police officials say that most of the killings have been executed on a Saturday . The officials are not ruling out the possibility that the killers have other jobs from Monday to Friday and complete their hits on the weekend.
