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A local Congress leader was shot dead at his house in Dala village of Moga district late on Monday. Police said that Baljinder Singh Balli (45), who was also locally known as ‘namberdar’, was shot twice. While one bullet pierced his chest, the other hit his thigh. Balli was the block president of Ajitwal village for the Congress party. Police said that two assailants came on a bike. While one entered the house, the other kept waiting outside.

Hours after the incident, fugitive gangster Arshdeep Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla, also a native of Dala village but believed to be hiding in Canada, took to Facebook and claimed responsibility for the killing. In a Facebook post purportedly posted from Arsh Dalla’s account, he blamed Balli for ‘introducing him in the world of crime’ and for ‘harassing his mother’.

In the CCTV camera footage of the incident, a shooter is seen barging inside the house when Balli was standing in the porch. He opened fire and Balli collapsed. An elderly man appears and tries to hold Balli but he again collapses. He was taken to the hospital but succumbed to bullet injuries, said police. The Facebook post from Arsh Dalla’s account originally written in Punjabi can be loosely translated as: “I am responsible for the murder of Balli in Dala village because it was my own village’s politics which had made me tread this path. This man (Balli) was responsible for keeping my mother in CIA (police) custody for a week and he also got my friends arrested. He was hand in glove with police… and got my home vandalised. He destroyed my home just to gain his own afsar shaahi… My life’s aim was not to live my own life but to kill him. If we wished, we would have killed his child too but that child was nowhere at fault…. those who are sympathising with him, their homes are also not far for us