This is the portrait that emerges of Ponty Chadha: he was a paunchy, broad-chested, grizzle-faced man a warm-hearted person who greeted his friends with bear hugs. The man who controlled more than half the liquor market in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, was a private person, according to his friends, keeping the business within the tight confines of the family and suspicious of outsiders. Ponty Chadha did not revel in the kind of fame enjoyed by other magnates in the alcohol industry-men such as Vijay Mallya of the UB Group, for example. Whatever the truth, the shoot-out brought to national prominence a business family about which very little was known even in northern India, their home turf. There has been no definitive account of what exactly transpired at the family farmhouse on the morning of 17 November, but conspiracy theories abound, given Ponty Chadha’s larger-than-life image and presence in businesses ranging from liquor distribution and real estate to films and his behind-the-scenes involvement with politics and politicians, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab.

Though there is no definitive account of what happened, police have taken several men into custody including Uttarakhand politician Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, who, they now claim, fired shots that killed Hardeep.

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