In a shocking, high-profile murder, Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi Nijjar, the last witness in the gangster Sukha Kahlwan murder case, was shot dead by assailants at Dhilwan in Kapurthala in the wee hours of Friday.Nijjar, who had a long-time association with Kahlwan, was driving his private vehicle when several assailants arrived and fired shots at him at 3.45 am on Friday.Nijjar was reportedly alone in the car when armed assailants approached his vehicle, fired shots from the front and hit his chest area. A bullet hole could be clearly seen in the windshield of his car, through which the bullet pierced.Photographs of Nijjar, collapsed in a pool of blood in the driver’s seat, have since gone viral on social media.A resident of village Jairampur in Kapurthala, Nijjar had repeatedly been warned by family and friends to be wary of enemies, as he was the last witness in the Sukha Kahlwan murder case.Soon after his murder, the Doni Bal gang claimed responsibility for the killing.A post on social media claimed that Doni Bal and his associates (five of whom were named) took responsibility for Nijjar’s murder at Dhilwan on Friday.The post also claimed that Nijjar had favoured the Lawrence gang and celebrated Sidhu Moosewala’s murder. It further alleged that Nijjar had sheltered Gore Bariar’s killers and spoken ill of Vicky Gounder, for which revenge was being exacted.Kapurthala SSP Gaurav Toora said, “The Kapurthala police received intimation that certain unidentified assailants had murdered a man at Dhilwan last night. The police immediately reached the spot and rushed the victim, identified as Gurpreet Singh Nijjar, to the hospital, where he was declared dead. A case of murder and Arms Act is being registered against the assailants on the victim family’s complaint. The Kapurthala police has constituted several teams and is on the lookout for the accused. A detailed investigation has started.”The SSP also informed that Nijjar had three previous cases against him under sections including the Arms Act, NDPS Act and attempt to dacoity.Sukha Kahlwan (Sukhbir Singh Kahlon), a notorious Punjab gangster, was murdered on January 22, 2015, on the Phagwara-Jalandhar highway in Punjab when he was being transported by police to Nabha jail. An eight-member gang had intercepted his vehicle and indiscriminately fired at him, leading to his murder.Why Gopi Nijjar mattered?Nijjar was deemed a right-hand man of gangster Sukha Kahlwan. While other witnesses in the Sukha Kahlwan murder case, including the security personnel deputed on the fateful day, had turned hostile over time, Nijjar had stood his ground and his accounts had led to action against the culprits.