Delhi celebratory firing: ‘Aapki purani aadat hai, pehle bata dena.'

NEW DELHI: Minutes before she was shot by a stray bullet fired to celebrate the countdown to the

new year

, Archana Gupta and a few other guests are reported to have walked up to

Raju Singh

, a former Bihar MLA and host of the party, and requested him to alert them in advance before firing from his gun, police sources said, quoting a witness. “Aapki purani aadat hai, pehle bata dena. Hum log door hat jayenge (You have this old tradition, so please warn us. We will move to a safe distance),” she is believed to have told Singh.


Read also:Celebratory firing: Delhi police detain former JD(U) MLA

Those could well be her last words. Seconds after saying this, a bullet hit her on the back of her head, and police said on Wedensday that she was brain-dead. Her family, the cops said, is considering donating her organs.

Gupta has been put on full ventilation support while the medical team considers how best to deal with the bullet that is lodged in her skull.

Only three days earlier, the family had held a grand birthday party for Gupta, who turned 43 on December 28. The shocked family and relatives can now only hope for a miracle. Gupta’s son and daughter, both of whom are to appear for their board exams in February, had to be given sleeping pills to help them get some rest, said Nishant, the woman’s brother.

The woman’s brother-in-law, Vineet Bansal, pacing anxiously outside the hospital, swore that Gupta was the most jovial among all his relatives. “She was a good manager at work and for the family,” he said. “Archana was the one who kept track of the birthdays and anniversaries in the family and organised parties on these occasions. In fact, she was planning a family get-together sometime after New Year’s Day.”

Gupta, who is vice-president of the realty firm KPDK Buildtech owned by her husband, Vikas Gupta, had returned from a foreign trip a few days ago. She attended a party with her children On December 31 before going to Raju Singh’s

farmhouse

in the evening.

“We were not even aware that they would be attending the former MLA’s party,” a relative disclosed. “She had dropped off the children at a friend’s house and had promised to pick them up later. She did not mention the farmhouse party though. We learnt about the incident only on Tuesday morning when Vikas called us and broke down with the news.”

The Gupta couple had attended Singh’s event at the request of Sanjeev, the brother of Vikas. The siblings had both earned a degree in medicine from a university in Moscow. After returning to Delhi, Vikas had set up a pharma company in which both Singh and Sanjeev were partners. Vikas had subsequently forayed into real estate, though Singh and Sanjeev continued to routinely come to him for business advice.


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