Two bike-borne men opened fire, says friend

Chennai: A newly married working couple from Chennai was shot at by two bike-borne men on National Highway-58 in Muzafarnagar in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday evening.

Aditya Kumar and his wife Vijayalakshmi, residents of Rayala Nagar near Ramapuram were touring North India on bike alone with their friend Shyam Teja, who is also working in Chennai, on another bike when the couple was shot. Police said the couple worked in L&T as assistant managers.

All the three were traveling to Delhi from Haridwar on rented bikes, when the incident happened. Aditya hails from Hyderabad while his wife is from Karnataka. Immediately after shooting the couple, the assailants, who were also on a bike, fled the spot.

While Aditya was hit by a bullet on his neck, his wife sustained injuries when she fell from the bike. It was their friend Shyam Teja, in another bike, who informed the police. The couple had been shifted to a hospital in Delhi.

“Aditya is now in ICU but recovering. Doctors are hopeful of shifting him to hometown in four or five days. His wife had suffered minor injuries,” said Shyam Teja, another employee at L&T, and a witness to the incident, when this newspaper contacted him on Sunday.

UP police noted that they are probing all angles including robbery attempt, mistaken identity and road rage. Police claimed that they are scanning CCTV footage of nearby hotels, markets to find clues about the bikers.

Shyam Teja, however, noted that there was no demand for money. He was traveling with the couple in another bike and had witnessed the assailants who came in a bike and opened fire. “There was no demand for money and there was no incident of road rage earlier during the journey,” he said.