Four guards of Ponty Chadha arrested

Four guards of Ponty Chadha have been arrested for allegedly entering a farmhouse and thrashing men there on Saturday, hours before the liquor baron was killed at the same place even as questions were raised about police response to a call made to them about a scuffle.

The four men were among a group of people that entered the farmhouse in Chhattarpur here on Saturday morning, beat up men of Ponty's younger brother Hardeep, with whom the liquor baron had a dispute, and threw them out before firing in air and snatching their mobile phones, police said on Tuesday.

Those arrested have been identified as Udayraj Singh, Bhupinder Singh Bisht, Rajpal and Anand Singh Bisht -- all men of Ponty, Joint Commissioner of Police (South-West) Vivek Gogia told reporters.

This incident at around 11 AM had preceded the shootout later in the south Delhi farmhouse in which Ponty and Hardeep were killed almost 90 minutes later.

Tension was brewing between Ponty and Hardeep for a couple of days before their killing and on the same day in south-west Delhi's Bijwasan area, the liquor baron's men had allegedly tried to evict Hardeep's staff from a farmhouse. Two persons --Madan Rana and Vijay-- were arrested in this connection.

Questions have also been raised about the response of the police to a call made at around 11.50 am on Saturday about the scuffle inside the Chhattarpur farm.

Police said the personnel who had gone to the spot had reported that they could not find anything untoward there and everything was peaceful though bullets were fired in the air when Ponty's men beat up Hardeep's staff.

However, around 40 minutes later the shooting incident took place.

Gogia did not reply to questions whether a prompt response to the first call by PCR personnel could have averted the incident.

He said PCR has informed them that it was a call about the scuffle and there was no mention about firing.

The official also did not answer a question on whether the statements of Uttarakhand Minorities Commission Chairman Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, who had gone to the spot with Ponty, and his PSO Sachin Tyagi matched.

To another question, he said they will keep talking to Namdhari as he is the informant about the incident.

"Namdhari has given us his version. We are verifying it also. It is subject to investigation," he said.

Police had said yesterday that tension was brewing between Ponty and Hardeep for a couple of days before their killing and community elders and family members were trying to sort out the issues.