Panchkula hotel shooting: Mitraon village in spotlight again, victims were uncle & nephew, their houses locked

The houses of the two, close to each other’s, were locked on Monday evening.

Speaking about the minor, a neighbour said, “He was a good kid… I heard that he was going to Chandigarh when he died… there’s no one at their house.”

Pointing to her grandson, she added, “They were friends.” The boy, silently listening to the conversation, refused to comment.

Another neighbour added, “The boy had recently completed class 12. He used to play here in these streets along with others… We got the news in the afternoon. The other victim was his maternal uncle.”

Villagers said the family had left for their native village of Luksar in Haryana’s Jhajjar.

At Luksar, three villagers sat under the light of three dim bulbs. They had heard about the incident but said the families had lost touch decades ago. Also, the families of the two victims rarely ever came to Luksar, they added.

“There has been some sort of estrangement, so they no longer come here… We also came to know of the incident through WhatsApp messages and YouTube…,” said a man stationed at a temple in the village as a night guard.

Najafgarh’s Mitraon village is no stranger to shootouts or gang wars. Over the past three decades, it has borne the brunt of bloody gang wars. Fights for supremacy between residents of Mitraon and the neighbouring Dichaon Kalan originated in the late 1980s over family feuds and land grab.

Gangster Manjeet Mahal, who was allegedly involved in the murder of Bharat Singh, former Indian National Lok Dal MLA from Najafgarh, is also from Mitraon.