A senior technology executive who had flown home from Singapore for his nephew's wedding was shot dead outside his house in Faridabad on Friday night, allegedly by his neighbour, after a long-running dispute over parking in their residential building turned violent. The victim, 45-year-old Paramjit Dhankhar, was hit by nine bullets and died on the spot. Police arrested the accused, Monu Sharma, on Saturday, hours after the killing.
Dhankhar had headed Tech Mahindra's Asia-Pacific business operations before moving to Singapore, where he worked as a senior vice-president with FPT Software. He had returned to India on November 5 to attend his nephew's wedding, scheduled for November 24, and to celebrate Diwali with his family. Originally from Hisar in Haryana, he lived with his family on the ground floor of a house in Sector 21C, Faridabad.
His son Shaurya, who was with him when the shooting happened, escaped unhurt.
According to the police, the incident took place at around 8.30 pm on Friday outside house number 641 in Sector 21C. Sharma, who also goes by the name Mohan and lives in the same building, rang the doorbell of Dhankhar's ground-floor home and called him downstairs, ostensibly to discuss moving a car in the parking area. Shaurya went down with his father.
An argument broke out in the parking lot, and Sharma allegedly pulled out his licensed pistol and opened fire at close range.
Police said around 15 rounds were fired, nine of which are believed to have struck Dhankhar in the chest and torso. He tried to flee but collapsed and died at the spot. Sharma also allegedly fired at Shaurya, who managed to escape by taking cover behind parked vehicles. Dhankhar's body was later sent to the Civil Hospital in Faridabad for a post-mortem examination, which will establish the exact number of bullets that hit him.
The killing was the violent end of a dispute between the two families that had been simmering for months, according to police sources and neighbours. The families had quarrelled repeatedly over a pet dog defecating in the common parking area, over damage to a gate in the shared parking space, and over cars being parked in spots claimed by the other family.
The immediate trigger on Friday appears to have been a confrontation over a damaged gate: Shaurya had asked Sharma to get the gate repaired, and the two sides had argued over it through the day.
Neighbours told reporters that Sharma had become a source of concern in the locality. They spoke of loud music being played late into the night, luxury cars being driven at high speed through the residential streets, and claims that he had fired shots into the air on earlier occasions. About a year ago, the goods and services tax department had raided his premises following allegations of tax evasion, police sources said.
The dispute had already reached the police before the shooting. Hours before the murder, Dhankhar had gone to a local police post to lodge a complaint over the parking row. Sharma was also present there, and according to reports, he threatened Dhankhar in front of officers, telling him he would not leave him alive by the night and asking him whether he had ever seen what a widow looks like.
The two sides were then allowed to reach a compromise and sent home. Within hours, the threat had allegedly been carried out.
A team from the Sector 30 Crime Branch, led by Inspector Anil Kumar, arrested Sharma on Saturday near DLF Chowk in Ballabhgarh after a search operation. Police said he would be produced before a court and that they would seek his remand for questioning and for the recovery of evidence, including the weapon used in the crime.
Based on a complaint filed by Shaurya, a case has been registered at Surajkund police station under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy, along with provisions of the Arms Act. The first information report names five people: Sharma, his wife Divya, his son Mayank, his daughter Naina and his brother Hetram.
So far, police have announced only Sharma's arrest, and the others named in the complaint are yet to be questioned, officials said.
Faridabad Police spokesperson Yash Pal confirmed the arrest and said the investigation was continuing. Surajkund station house officer Prahlad Singh said the police were questioning Sharma about the sequence of events and about the involvement, if any, of the other family members named in the complaint.
The killing has shocked residents of the quiet middle-class neighbourhood, where the two families had lived in the same building for years. Neighbours said the arguments between them had become frequent in recent weeks but nobody expected them to end in murder. The fact that the victim had returned to India only a day earlier, for what was meant to be a family celebration, has added to the sense of loss.
Dhankhar's career had taken him from Hisar to senior leadership roles in India's information technology industry. His LinkedIn profile lists him as the former head of Tech Mahindra's Asia-Pacific regional business before he joined FPT Software as a senior vice-president. Friends and former colleagues described him as a successful executive who had built a career abroad while keeping close ties with his family in Haryana.
His nephew's wedding, for which he had travelled home, is now overshadowed by grief.
The case has also raised questions about how a dispute that was known to the police, and that had already produced an open threat hours before the murder, was allowed to escalate. Police sources said the two sides had reached a compromise at the police post on Friday, and there was no indication at that stage that the matter would turn violent.
Whether the compromise was recorded, and whether any preventive steps were taken after the alleged threat, are questions the investigation will have to answer.
Licensed firearms in private hands are at the centre of the case as well. Sharma allegedly used his licensed pistol to fire around 15 rounds in a residential parking area. Police said they were examining the licence and the circumstances under which the weapon was kept and used. The recovery of the pistol and the cartridges fired at the scene will form part of the evidence placed before the court.
As the investigation proceeds, the police are also recording statements from neighbours and from other residents of the building to reconstruct the months of friction between the two families. The statements are expected to establish how the dispute over a parking space, a pet dog and a broken gate moved from repeated complaints to a fatal shooting.
For the family, the immediate concern is the last rites and the wedding that was to have been celebrated later this month. Dhankhar's body was handed over to the family after the post-mortem. His son Shaurya, the complainant in the case and the only eyewitness to the shooting, is cooperating with the police as they build the case against the accused.
(Reporting based on ThePrint, The Times of India, The Indian Express and NDTV.)