The miscreants continued to fire for around 15 minutes, the official said (Image: X/@sirajnoorani)
“Twelve miscreants on six motorcycles reached the toll plaza and opened fire at the employees working there,” Chirula police station in-charge Nitin Bhargava said
In a tragic incident, two employees of a toll plaza in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia district were killed after falling into a well while trying to escape a bullet shower unleashed by masked gunmen, allegedly over a toll tax dispute. The incident happened at Dagrai toll plaza on National Highway 44, situated approximately 80km from Gwalior and adjacent to the Uttar Pradesh border at around 10 pm on Tuesday.
The bodies of the victims, identified as Srinivas Parihar from UP’s Agra and Shivaji Kandele from Maharastra’s Nagpur, were recovered from an uncovered well right behind the office on Wednesday.
The incident was captured on CCTV cameras, in which masked men can be seen kicking at the doors of toll counters, as some manage to enter the booths. They can be seen damaging computers, beating up the toll plaza staff and trying to drag them out.
“Twelve miscreants on six motorcycles reached the toll plaza and opened fire at the employees working there,” Chirula police station in-charge Nitin Bhargava said.
The miscreants continued to fire for around 15 minutes, the official said.
“Due to the sudden firing, the toll plaza employees started running helter-skelter in a bid to save themselves. Some of them ran towards the adjoining agricultural fields and two of them fell into the well there,” he said.
The bodies of these two deceased were taken out of the well on Wednesday morning, he said.
“The miscreants continued to fire for about 15 minutes and fired 20 to 30 rounds,” Bhargava said, adding that efforts were on to identify them with the help of the CCTV cameras.
A case against the unidentified accused was registered and further investigation is underway, he added.
