Still smarting under the shock of the November 17 shootout at Ponty Chadha’s Chhattarpur farm that left the liquor baron and his brother dead, the Gurgaon gentry was rattled once more by a gruesome shootout on December 11 inside the intensive care unit of a city hospital, barely a few kilometers from Chadha’s farmhouse.

Triggered by a property dispute, the shootout resulted in death of one while two others were gravely injured. According to locals, one group of locals from Khandsa village in Gurgaon’s sector 37 – which executed the shootout later – beat up members of another group (Joginder Singh, 23, his father Satbir, 52, and grandfather Shivraj, 81) outside the local court premises a few days ago. The victims were subsequently admitted to the ICU of Sunrise Hospital in Gurgaon.

According to witnesses, around 100 armed men drove into the hospital premises in SUVs around 3 pm on December 11. Carrying sophisticated arms, 10 of them entered the ICU and opened fire on the victims, gravely injuring them. They fled after seven minutes of the carnage, according to CCTV footage available with the police.

Till the time of going to press, only one of the accused, Manoj, was arrested.

As cops in the Millennium City grapple with the phenomenal spurt in crime, every new crime unravels a new level of daring and shows there are fearless lots with muscle and money.

In the past few years, the builder-driven growth in Gurgaon has changed the local socio-economic scenario. Those who tilled lands in villages were suddenly showered with maddening offers from various builders. Mercs replaced tractors and mansions their earlier moderate houses. But the nouveau-riche social climbers had their own share of falls to grapple with: morality and moderation became the first casualties. The present-day crime-ridden city is a result of that sudden growth.   

Policing in the city has become a challenge. Despite the rise in criminal cases, the police have been unable to stop these incidents, let alone induce fear among the lawless.

Crime against women has also touched a new peak in Gurgaon. In May 2010, women had to run for safety as hooligans tried to molest them during a chaos after WWE wrestler Khali’s show was called off at Tau Devi Lal stadium. A girl was molested by a group of local youths inside a bar in Sahara Mall in August this year while an Afghani girl was also molested inside a prominent bar on December 29. The police have not been able to check these cases. One reason for that could be the numbers of men and women in khaki: of 3,500 cops in the city, only 358 are women.