On the event date, a newly launched hotel in Rajasthan's Churu district turned into a crime scene after armed men opened fire inside the property, killing the owner and critically injuring three others in what police described as an attack rooted in a business rivalry.
According to the Hindustan Times report in the packet, the shooting took place around 12:30 a.m. at a hotel on Sandwa Road in Churu. Police said three to four armed men arrived in a vehicle, entered the premises and opened indiscriminate fire. The victim who died at the scene was identified as Maniram Manda, a 35-year-old hotel owner.
Churu Superintendent of Police Jai Yadav said the initial investigation pointed to a dispute connected to the liquor trade. The report says Manda and the attackers had long been involved in that business and had both applied for a bar in the same locality, creating a dispute that police believe may have escalated into violence. Yadav described the shooting as part of an ongoing rivalry involving another group linked to the trade.
The three injured men, identified as Bhikharam, Shravan and Prabhuram, were all residents of Dadiba. They were first taken to a government hospital in Sujangarh and then referred to SMS Hospital in Jaipur for advanced treatment. Police said all three were in critical condition.
The packet also describes video evidence that may help investigators, though not every detail in it has been independently verified. Hindustan Times reported that CCTV footage appeared to show three men with their faces partly covered entering the hotel and firing at customers and staff near the counter. The footage also reportedly showed one customer throwing a utensil at one of the shooters in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the attack.
Investigators recovered empty cartridges from the scene and sealed the hotel, according to the report. Police said they were examining CCTV footage from the hotel and surrounding area to identify everyone involved and reconstruct how the attackers arrived and escaped. By later in the day, officers had detained three suspects for questioning.
The shooting quickly became a political issue as well as a criminal one. Former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot criticized the state's law-and-order situation after the attack, saying the incident had rattled traders and deepened fears about public safety. The packet does not include any response from the state government to that criticism, so the political significance remains limited to the reaction cited in the source.
What is clear from the verified record is that the attack struck a business that had opened only days earlier and left one man dead, three others fighting for their lives and police pursuing a motive centered on local commercial rivalry. The next stage of the case will depend on whether the detained suspects can be tied directly to the shooting and whether investigators can turn the preliminary theory about the liquor-trade dispute into a prosecutable case.
