Panchkula Police Crack Mohali Gig Worker Murder

A murder case in Panchkula looked almost impossible at the start. A man’s body was found under a bridge near Khetparali village in the Raipur Rani area during the night of April 28–29, and police had almost nothing to work with — no mobile phone, no identity card, no immediate way to say who he was or how he got there. A week later, Panchkula Police said they had solved it, identified the victim as 32-year-old Harinder Singh of Mohali, and arrested two men they say were his friends. (indianexpress.com) ### Who was the victim? Harinder Singh was a Mohali resident who worked as a Rapido driver — one of the app-based gig workers who shuttle riders around on demand. Early local coverage described him as 32 or 33, which is common in fast-moving crime reporting, but the arrest announcement from Panchkula Police identified him as 32. That matters because this was not a random unidentified body for long — police were able to connect the victim back to a real person with a work life, local ties, and a last known movement that could be traced. (indianexpress.com) ### Why was this case so hard? Because it started as what police call a blind murder. The body was found away from the victim’s home area, under a bridge, with no obvious clues left at the scene. If a killer dumps a body in a different district and strips away the phone and ID, the first delay is basic but brutal — investigators have to figure out who the victim even is before they can build a timeline. That missing first link is what usually slows everything down. (indianexpress.com) ### What do police say happened? Police say Harinder Singh was with two friends — Sangam Kumar, 23, and Vijay Kumar alias Deenanath, 35 — on the night of April 28 in the Nayagaon area of Mohali. During questioning, the two men allegedly told police the three had been consuming intoxicants when an argument broke out. Investigators say Harinder became unconscious, was assaulted, loaded into a Swift Dzire, taken toward Panchkula, and then thrown from a bridge roughly 120 feet high near Khetparali. (jagran.com) ### How did police find them? This is the part that makes the case stand out. Panchkula Police formed five special teams and spent about 120 hours scanning more than 400 CCTV feeds. Basically, they rebuilt the victim’s route and the suspects’ vehicle movement frame by frame until the dead end stopped being a dead end. Police also say they gathered technical evidence and later recovered the Swift Dzire allegedly used in the crime, with bloodstains inside. (indianexpress.com) ### Were the accused strangers? Turns out, no. Reports say the accused and Harinder knew each other already and had previously stayed together at a de-addiction centre in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, before reconnecting after being discharged in April. That changes the shape of the case. It does not look like a planned robbery or a predatory attack on a gig worker by unknown passengers. Police are treating it as a killing that grew out of an existing relationship and spiraled during intoxication. (jagran.com) ### Why does the CCTV count matter? Because “400 cameras” is not just a flashy number. It tells you how this case was solved without a confession at the start, without an ID at the scene, and without a clean eyewitness trail. Think of it like stitching together hundreds of tiny, blurry receipts from the city’s memory. One camera alone proves almost nothing. A long chain of them can show direction, timing, vehicle continuity, and eventually the people inside the frame. (indianexpress.com) ### What happens next? The arrests do not end the case — they move it into the evidence stage. Police have said the accused were remanded and then sent to judicial custody, and the prosecution will now have to tie the CCTV trail, forensic signs in the car, the recovery story, and any statements into a version that holds up in court. That is the real test after a fast police breakthrough. (jagran.com)nt. A body found under a bridge with no phone and no ID looked like the kind of case that could go cold fast. Instead, Panchkula Police turned it into a named victim, two arrests, a reconstructed route, and a suspected murder weapon on wheels — all in about five days. (indianexpress.com)