Killing of Doaba youth in US sets alarm bells ringing

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, June 16

“Beh ke aapas vich gal kar lainde.. mai tan naa vi nahi si suneya munde da (they could have resolved differences by talking. I didn’t have information about the boy). Would a mother ever send her daughter abroad if she knows she would be shot? I don’t even know how my daughter is, I haven’t even seen her face.”

Cries a hapless Surjit Kaur, whose daughter Gagandeep Kaur was shot at by classmate/friend Gaurav Gill in New Jersey, US, on Wednesday. Her 3-month pregnant cousin Jasvir Kaur died in the same incident.

Gagandeep and Jasvir from Doaba who had gone to the US in pursuit of greener pastures but their dreams were shattered. The disturbing rise in incidents where Punjabi youths fall victim to freak, angry crimes (many perpetrated by their own), have set alarm bells ringing for the NRI belt of Doaba.

US tops the list of countries where such incidents happen. And Doaba tragically tops the list of regions whose natives are increasingly falling prey to such crimes.

The cousins’ killing is the third incident this year where the Doaba natives have been shot by a friend or acquiantance in the US. This year, six persons have been shot of them four belonged to Doaba.

Just a week ago, on June 8, at Richmond Hill in New York, Kapurthala’s Narangpur village native Karamjit Singh Multani (33), a father of three, shot his younger brother Vipan Pal Multani (26) dead in a fit of anger and injured his mother. Karamjit was later found dead in an apparent suicide.

In February this year, Harpreet Singh, a 27-year-old from Banga in Nawanshahr, was shot dead by a friend in California, the US.

In most cases, poor youths sent by parents to earn big bucks lose their lives, leaving parents baffled.