An employee of the Public Works Department, who was wounded in a shooting incident during a Supreme Court-mandated anti-encroachment drive in Himachal Pradesh’s Kasauli town, died on Sunday, The Indian Express reported. Gulab Singh was assisting Shail Bala Sharma, an assistant town and country planner, on May 1 when hotelier Vijay Singh Thakur opened fire.
While Singh suffered injuries, Sharma was killed at the spot. Thakur was arrested two days later from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
Singh was put on ventilator support on May 10 after he reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest, according to The Hindu. An unidentified official at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh said that Singh was not responding well to the treatment after being put on the ventilator.
After the shooting incident, Solan District Magistrate Vinod Kumar issued an order directing hotel owners and staff to “deposit their firearms, weapons and ammunition at the nearest police stations immediately”, according to The Indian Express.
On May 5, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur admitted to lapses in the execution of the court-ordered demolition drive. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, took sou moto cognisance of the incident and asked the Himachal Pradesh government to submit the names of officials posted in Kasauli when the unauthorised structures that were demolished were built.
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