A 24-year-old woman, who sustained gunshot wounds when a man went on a shooting spree in Bihar’s Lakhisarai district, died at a hospital in Patna on Tuesday, police said. She was identified as Durga Jha, they said.
The incident, which unfolded in Punjabi Mohalla in the Kabaiya police station area on Monday when Durga’s family was returning home after Chhath Puja rituals, left her two elder brothers — Chandan and Raj Nandan — dead on the spot. Along with Durga, her father Shashi Bhushan and the wives of his brothers Preeti and Lovely were also injured in the firing, police said.
The gunman, Ashish Chaudhary, lived right across the street from the family’s house, police said. Some family members of Durga alleged that they had been receiving threats from Chaudhary who was ”adamant upon marrying Durga, which we could not agree to since he belonged to a lower caste”.
Deputy Inspector General of Munger Range Sanjay Kumar had earlier said, ”We are investigating the matter from many angles. Some vital clues have emerged from a notebook of Chaudhary which the local police seized.” ”From the scribblings in the notebook, it appears that Durga had secretly got married to Chaudhary a few years ago and the two lived together for some time. There are also a few photographs of them together,” said the DIG. Police said searches were underway to nab Chaudhary.
”Two of his close associates, including the person who provided him with the weapon, have been arrested. The weapon of offence and other evidence have been seized by the police,” a police officer said. Meanwhile, leader of opposition in the state assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is the BJP MLA of Lakhisarai, blamed the government for the incident.
”The family was receiving threats from the attacker for days but the police failed to act. We fear that the administration may try to shield the real culprits, and divert the probe in a direction that would suit their political masters,” he alleged.
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