Moga shooting: Two cousins killed as SUV-borne gunmen open fire, personal enmity suspected
In this digitally enhanced screenshot of a widely circulated video on X, policemen are seen talking to locals at Moga’s Angadpura where assailants shot dead two cousins.
New Delhi: Two cousins were killed and at least two other people injured when gunmen travelling in a black Scorpio SUV opened fire in Punjab’s Moga town late on Sunday. Police said their preliminary investigation pointed to personal enmity, with members of the victims’ family naming suspects in the attack in the Angadpura neighbourhood.
The deceased were identified as Gagan Jindal and Sahil Jindal, whose ages were reported by NDTV as 30 and 40, respectively. The injured were taken to hospital for treatment following the shooting.
According to the police account carried by the Indian Express, members of an extended family were gathered outside their homes when the vehicle approached. The senior superintendent of police in Moga, Sartaj Singh Chahal, said five or six people were sitting there when occupants of the SUV began firing.
Eyewitnesses estimated that the attackers fired 15–20 rounds, although police had not established the number of shots discharged. Chahal said investigators recovered three spent cartridge cases and called a forensic team to examine the scene, while officers were checking nearby CCTV footage.
The station house officer of Moga City South police station, Varun Kumar, said the family had identified several people as suspects and that police were recording a relative’s statement to register a first information report. His initial assessment suggested a personal dispute, but the precise circumstances behind the attack remained under investigation.
Initial accounts differed on the number of injured: police statements reported by some media outlets put the figure at two, while some reported three. A local outlet said an additional person had reportedly been struck by bullet splinters, a detail that could account for the difference but had not been reconciled in the available police account.
The shooting drew criticism from the BJP leader, Ravneet Singh Bittu, who questioned the Bhagwant Mann government’s handling of public safety in a post on X. He alleged that criminals were becoming emboldened and demanded accountability for repeated incidents of violence in Punjab.
The attack followed two other fatal incidents reported in the state over the preceding days: the killing of a man with sharp-edged weapons in Ludhiana on October 24 and the shooting of a 27-year-old outside his home in Amritsar on October 23 after a dispute over moving a scooter. These provide the immediate backdrop to the political criticism, although the reports cited no connection between those cases and the Moga shooting.
