Gurgaon encounter: Juvie javelin thrower who won gold medal among 4 shooters killed in Sushant Lok

GURGAON: Until two days ago, their lives seemed headed in very different directions — one spent his evenings perfecting his javelin throw, another worked as a daily-wage labourer to support his family, and the third had finally realised his dream of opening a motorcycle repair shop. On Friday, a phone call informed their families that all three youngsters from Rohtak had been killed in an encounter after accompanying a history-sheeter during a shooting in Sushant Lok. For parents who believed their sons were at school, work or on a pilgrimage, the news was nothing short of a devastating revelation.Also read: SUVs, 60 bullets, 120 seconds: How posh Gurgaon society became battlefield The three youths — all from Bhalaut village in Rohtak — had been missing for nearly two days.

Their families said they had no idea where they had gone and insisted they had no known links to crime. The youngest among them, a juvenile and Class XI student, was an aspiring javelin thrower who had won gold at a tournament in Agra barely five months ago. His father Pradeep, a farmer, said his son divided his time between school and the stadium. “He attended school in the morning and trained for four to five hours every evening.

I never realised when he came in contact with these gangsters. Everything has come to a standstill,” he told TOI. For Ankit (18), life revolved around earning a living and putting food on the table. Having dropped out of school, he worked as a labourer at a construction site. On July 8, he told his family he was leaving for the kanwar yatra — a trip he had undertaken last year as well. “My dream was to renovate the house and get my remaining children married,” said his father, Anil (50), a sanitation worker at an Amul plant. Fighting back tears, he added, “What do I do with that dream now?” Nitin (22) had spent six years learning motorcycle repair before opening his own workshop just four months ago. His father Sanjay, a driver, said the family searched for him after he disappeared two days earlier. “We checked his shop. It was locked. We are a simple family. We only wanted to earn an honest living. We don’t know who influenced him or when his mindset changed,” he added. Police records, however, show Nitin was facing two cases in Rohtak under charges of attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms. The fourth man killed in the encounter — Deepa alias Sandeep (35) from Fatehabad — had a long criminal record, with 14 cases against him under various charges, including the Arms Act, NDPS Act and other serious offences. His brother, Rambul, said the family had cut ties with him seven to eight years ago after repeated attempts to persuade him to leave crime failed.