Himachal Hotel Owner Who Shot Dead Woman Officer Nabbed From UP After 2 Days

Solan: The hotel owner who shot dead a woman assistant town planner in Solan in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday was arrested from Mathura on Thursday.

Shailbala Sharma, 51, was killed by Vijay Thakur while carrying out a Supreme Court ordered demolition drive in the hill district.

Additional SP Solan, Dr Shiv Kumar, who was heading the special team formed in the case, said the accused was constantly on police radar. He said the accused was being brought to Solan for further investigations and will be produced before the court on Friday.

The DGP, who was camping in Kasauli to supervise the investigations, said that the Solan police had taken the help of their UP counterparts to nab the accused. An official said that police in neighboring states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttrakhand and Delhi were also alerted. His photographs and images were also flashed for identification.

Police said the accused had sent a text message to a relative, saying he was going to surrender to the police.

According to officials, Vijay had constantly argued with the demolition team and even threatened suicide, saying that the SC orders were wrong. He alleged that the orders had been manipulated at the behest of some “influential persons".

He had relented after several hours and the police team accompanying the PWD officials and Sharma left for the next demolition site. Soon after, he shot Sharma thrice, killing her on the spot. He then ran into the jungle and had been on the run for the last two days.

The Supreme Court had also taken cognizance of the incident and demanded a report. Calling it an unfortunate incident, the top court today said the women officer "wasn't killed because of implementation of the Supreme Court order, but because of non-implementation of the law".

Dubbing the incident as "extremely serious", the top court said it was quite clear that there was "absolutely no regard" for the rule of law as the public servants had gone there to do their job, and warned the government it would stop passing orders if the situation persisted.