How Chandigarh cops were caught napping as shooters escaped

About 2.30 pm, two young men with their faces covered and donning caps shot dead Janki Das, the cashier at a Sector 11 chemist shop. Multiple gunshots were fired from an automatic pistol in broad daylight in a shop filled with customers. Both assailants running out of the shop were captured by CCTV cameras in the area.

Barely 20-30 metres from the crime scene, police personnel deployed at a barricade were caught napping, having no wind of what transpired moments ago, and the assailants got on the motorbike of their accomplice waiting at some distance and sped away. It is not yet clear whether they had helmets on.

“The motorcycle used in the crime was stolen from Tarn Taran. The registration number displayed on the damaged number plate was found to be fake,” a police officer privy to the investigation said.

From the crime scene to Bougainvillaea Garden in Sector 3, where the motorbike was found dumped, police traced the assailants’ 1.5 to 2-km journey. The bike was dumped barely 700-800 metres away from the Haryana chief minister’s residence, almost equidistant to the Sector 3 police station, and very close to MLAs’ flats — an extremely high-security zone.

Based on technical inputs and CCTV surveillance, investigating officers found the duo taking an auto-rickshaw and moving towards Kajheri village on the Chandigarh-Mohali border — around 10 km, where they dumped the motorbike, according to police sources.

Sources said police suspected the accused had eventually crossed over to Mohali.

The entire route the accused took to escape has several vital installations, including the police headquarters, Reserve Bank of India, Municipal Corporation, UT Secretariat, besides several other government offices and vital installations, which have round-the-clock security and surveillance.

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The assailants escaped, dodging all security apparatus and surveillance systems in place en route, raising serious questions over the Chandigarh Police’s efficacy in surveillance and interception mechanisms through one of the city’s highly monitored and protected stretches.

According to officials, the auto-rickshaw driver was not known to the accused and appears to have been hired at random after they dumped their motorbike. “The assailants’ movement has been traced till Sector 43-Kajheri village stretch. Thereafter, they are suspected to have escaped into Mohali,” a police officer said.

The escape route falls within the Chandigarh Police’s Central and South Sub-Divisions, which comprises jurisdictions of at least five police stations, including Sector 11, 3, Sarangapur, 17 and 36. Police sources said more than two dozen police checkposts would have been operational across these two subdivisions at that time. Despite these deployments, the attackers managed to leave the crime scene, switch vehicles and cross the city limits.

A senior police officer said multiple teams are working on the case, and the Punjab Police has been alerted. “Our different teams are working on the case. The assailants, reportedly, after dumping their motorcycle, escaped towards Punjab. Punjab Police has also been alerted, and a joint operation to arrest the accused is underway,” the officer said.

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The incident has once again brought Chandigarh’s security infrastructure under scrutiny. The city has around 2,200 CCTV cameras installed across roads, intersections and public places. Yet, despite being captured on multiple cameras and moving through an area covered by four police stations and several checkpoints, the assailants outsmarted the law enforcement apparatus.

Janki Das, 45, a native of Himachal Pradesh, succumbed to gunshot injuries after two men posing as customers entered the medical store and opened fire at close range. The accused remains at large.