Vikas Chaudhary: Murdered Congress leader's tweets warned about 'New India'

On Thursday morning, Haryana Congress spokesperson Vikas Chaudhary was parking his SUV outside a gym, when two men emerged from a white Maruti SX4. One man flanked the car, pulled out a pistol, and shot Vikas dead through the windscreen of his SUV. The two assailants jumped back into their vehicle and sped away.

The shooter can be seen here in this CCTV grab

Locals rushed Vikas to hospital, but he was declared dead on arrival. The whole incident took place in broad daylight in about 44 seconds, and was captured on CCTV.

Vikas, 38, was a state spokesperson for the Haryana Congress. Formerly a member of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), he was a district president of their youth wing until 2015. He left the INLD after being denied a party ticket to contest an Assembly seat in Faridabad.

The Haryana Congress issued a statement on Twitter condemning the incident, including the CCTV footage that showed Vikas’ murder. "The news of the shooting of a Congress party spokesperson in Faridabad is very sad. This cowardly act is deplorable and highly shameful to the government."

Vikas was active on Twitter and his final tweets were retweets of posts criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi for downplaying the Jharkhand lynching. He had also earlier retweeted Simi Garewal on the growing prevalence of lynch mobs, communal attacks and rape in India.

In his last personal tweet, Vikas criticized Prime Minister Modi’s farmer subsidy schemes. "9811 farmers insured under the 'Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme' are going door to door to get their compensation, while the chief minister makes false claims that they are happy. False Promises, Innumerable Deceptions, False Propaganda Such is the BJP government of the state".

On June 26, Vikas had tweeted on “Modiji’s new India,” in reference to the incident where a BJP party worker attacked a municipal officer with a cricket bat. He said, “Modiji's new India. In Indore, Akash Vijayvargiya, the son-in-law of the BJP in-charge of West Bengal, publicly beat the officer with a bat and told him that law and morality was in his father's hands.”

Haryana Congress President Ashok Tanwar told ANI that Haryana had become a ‘jungle Raj’, where there was no fear of law. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar told ANI that he had no knowledge of details about Vikas’s murder.

Rahul Gandhi tweeted:

“The murder of Congress spokesperson and leader Vikas Chaudhary in Faridabad is a deplorable, shameful and tragic incident. It is a mirror of the deteriorating law and order situation in Haryana. May God give Chaudhary’s spirit peace and his family the ability to recover from this trauma.”