Video Producer/Editor: Vishnu Gopinath
An army jawan was arrested on Monday, 17 April, in connection with the killing of four soldiers at the Bathinda military station last week. This is a major breakthrough for the Punjab Police in what was a highly sensitive case.
The soldier has been identified as Mohan Desai.
Bathinda Senior Superintendent of Police Gulneet Singh Khurana said that the accused had "enmity" with the deceased and that the motive behind the murder was personal.
The four soldiers were killed while they were asleep in the military station on 12 April.
According to SSP Khurana, the police made a 'breakthrough' in the case on 16 April when they called jawan Mohan Desai, the purported eyewitness, for questioning.
He (Mohan Desai) kept changing his statements. When we interrogated him more strictly, he admitted that he only had killed the four jawans and that he had only stolen the Insas rifle.... He had a personal enmity towards them and wanted to kill them.Gulneet Singh Khurana, SSP Bathinda
SSP Khurana further disclosed that Desai made up a story about seeing two unidentified persons wearing kurta-pyjama with their heads and faces covered coming out of the barracks and running towards the jungle on the morning of the crime.
Desai had also claimed that one of them was carrying an INSAS rifle and the other an axe.
Providing more details about the investigation, SSP Khurana said, "When we began investigating, we found out that the weapon which had been stolen - Insas rifle - had been used for the crime. When internal weapons are used, we have noticed that an internal person is involved".
SSP Khurana didn't go into the nature of enmity that led to the killings.
However, Punjab Police sources told The Quint that the accused soldier was being harassed by other soldiers and he stole their INSAS rifle to murder them while they were asleep.
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