The body of 43-year-old victim, who recently moved the high court against Punjab’s controversial anti-sacrilege law, was found with a gunshot wounds in a secluded plot
Simranjit Singh, a Jalandhar-based lawyer and right to information (RTI) activist, was shot dead over a financial dispute near Maheru village on the Jalandhar-Ludhiana national highway in Phagwara on Saturday, police said.
The body of 43-year-old victim, who recently moved the high court against Punjab’s controversial anti-sacrilege law, was found with a gunshot wounds in a secluded plot behind the Lovely Professional University (LPU) campus.
Police have arrested Simranjit’s cousin for the crime, said Jalandhar range deputy inspector general (DIG) Naveen Singla. “The accused, Sharanjit Singh (40), alias Twinkle, is a resident of Tilak Nagar in Jalandhar. He is the son of victim’s maternal uncle,” he added. DIG Singla said both Simranjit and Sharanjit were involved in real estate business and had gone to see a piece of land in Maheru village on Saturday morning.
“While Simranjit went alone in his SUV Toyota Fortuner, Sharanjit came along with his five friends in a Maruti Swift car. Both had a verbal spat over a pending financial dispute of ?5 lakh which Simranjit owed to the main accused. As things got heated up, Sharanjit took a licensed .32 bore pistol from his accomplice Sandeep Singh Rai and fired two bullets from point-blank range at Simranjit,” said the DIG. He said the victim was provided with a security cover of two Punjab police personnel but he didn’t take them along with him.
Kapurthala senior superintendent of police (SSP) Gaurav Toora said Sharanjit fled after committing the crime. “He was identified on the basis of technical and digital evidences collected from the spot. Within hours, police managed to arrest him near the Phagwara bypass. The weapon used in crime was also seized,” added Toor. A case has been registered under the sections of 103 (murder), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and other sections of arms act, the SSP said, adding that Sharanjit’s accomplice have been also identified and will be nominated in the FIR.
Bid on his life last year, too
Simranjit was known for filing RTI applications and public interest litigations (PILs) in the Punjab and Haryana high court on high-stakes, controversial issues. Most recently, on April 22, he filed a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of Punjab’s stringent anti-sacrilege law—the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026.
This was not the first attempt on his life. On July 2, last year, Simranjit survived an attack when unidentified shooters opened fire on him as he was leaving a gym. Foreign-based gangster Jograj Singh, alias Joga Pholriwal, later claimed responsibility for that shooting.
India: Jalandhar lawyer shot dead over money dispute, cousin held
