Gurugram, October 15: Mahipal Singh, 32, who shot the wife and son of an additional sessions judge on Saturday, used to spend “four to six hours daily” browsing the internet, police said on Sunday. It also said that Singh had been ‘disturbed’ for the past one-and-a half months and had apologised to the judge twice for his ‘weird’ behaviour.
Singh shot Ritu, 38, and Dhruv, 18 — wife and son of additional sessions judge Krishan Kant — in a crowded market in Gurugram. He was the personal security guard of judge Kant. While Ritu succumbed to her injuries on Saturday night, Dhruv remains critical.
The police are yet to ascertain the motive behind the shooting which had shocked the city police and kept the force on its toes for at least two hours before Singh was arrested. Head constable Singh, whose services from the state police were terminated on Sunday, was produced before a local court later in the day. The city police has sought a week’s custody for extensive interrogation of Singh to establish the reason why he shot the duo.
Deputy commissioner of police Sumit Kuhar said the investigators are looking into Singh’s past life and affiliations to understand why he committed the crime. Kuhar said Singh was particularly active on social media and liked to post videos on the Facebook. He said Singh had two Facebook profiles, both of them with the name, ‘Mahipalji’.
Mahipal joined the Haryana Police in 2007. He had two daughters with his wife Vias Devi alias Meenu. Some family members claimed that the couple had a strained relationship over the birth of two daughters, said Kuhar.
However, Singh’s neighbours never reported any unusual behaviour and described him as a well-mannered man. He had moved to Gurugram four-and-a-half years ago and had been posted as a personal security officer for four years with many judges.
Kuhar said Singh was close to his daughters and often took them out and used to make their videos and upload it on Facebook and shared them with his relatives on WhatsApp.
After his father’s death, Singh started living with his maternal uncle in Bhungarka village in Narnaul and studied at a government school. It was his uncle who motivated Singh to become a police officer. He made Singh take up coaching for the exam to join the police force.
Kuhar also said that Singh had been watching videos related to religion and it is suspected that he had been attending ‘conversion’ camps. However, HT could not independently verify the claim. The police also could not explain as to how his alleged attendance at such camps could be connected to Saturday’s shooting.
In the video footage of the incident recorded by a witness, Mahipal is seen with the gun in his hand. He was also seen trying to push Dhruv inside the car as he laid listless on the road.
The body of Ritu was taken to her native Hisar on Sunday but was brought back and has been kept at a mortuary.
Source Hindustan Times
