District president of Hindu Sangharsh Sena Vipin Kumar (45) was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the Bharat Nagar area here on Monday.
The murderous attack has come within two weeks of similar incident in which RSS leader Ravinder Gosain was shot dead outside his house in Ludhiana on October 17.
Police Commissioner S S Srivastav and other top officials reached the spot.
Vipin was going to sit pillion on a motorcycle to return to his home in the Preet Nagar area on Batala road when two armed assailants pumped several bullets into him.
He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead. Vipin, a cable operator, also ran Jai Shankar Welfare Society that organises free ‘langar’ on Batala road for needy people.
CCTV footage of the incident has gone viral in which two youths, one of whom has his face covered, are seen firing indiscriminately at Vipin. This indicated that he was the only target of the assailants.
Srivastav said an alert has been sounded and efforts were on to identify one of the assailants whose face was captured on CCTV camera.
The Police Commissioner also held meeting with several Hindu outfit leaders and urged them to maintain peace and assured that the suspects will be nabbed soon.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Shiv Sena flayed the gunning down of the Hindu leader.
In a statement, the Sena's state vice president Rajesh Palta alleged that the killing of Hindu leaders one after the other was indicative of revival of terrorism in Punjab.
"If Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh does not tackle the issue with an iron hand, and instead carries on with the SAD-BJP policy of soft-pedalling over religious fundamentalists, then Punjab will again plunge into the dark days of terrorism like in the past and there will be danger to national integrity and amity," he claimed.
Meanwhile, state BJP chief and Union minister Vijay Sampla condemned the incident. “Apart from the killing of an Akali sarpanch Manpreet Kaur’s husband Harkirat Singh in Sangrur, this killing the same day paints the picture of deteriorating law and order in Punjab,” said Sampla. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal also condemned the killing.
Hindu right wing the target
■ Apr 23, 2016: Shiv Sena leader Durga Prasad Gupta shot dead in Khanna
■ Aug 6, 2016: RSS leader Brig Jagdish Gagneja (retd) shot dead in Jalandhar
■ Jan 14, 2017: Shri Hindu Takht district president Amit Sharma shot dead in Ludhiana
■ Oct 17: RSS leader Ravinder Gosain shot dead in Ludhiana
■ Oct 30: Vipan Sharma of Hindus Sangharsh Sena shot in Amritsar
Besides these murders, matriarch of the Namdhari sect, two followers of Dera Sacha Sauda and a Christian pastor have also been shot dead in the past two years
