CHANDIGARH/ PANIPAT: A 22-year-old singer who was shot in Panipat on Tuesday afternoon may have been killed for being a witness to her mother's murder. Suspecting this to be a strong possibility, police for now have ruled out any chances of her having been eliminated by professional rivals or someone else.Harshita Dahiya, a singer and dancer who lived in Narela in north-west Delhi, was shot eight times by two men who waylaid her car at 3.45pm on Tuesday when she was returning to Delhi from a farmers' event in Chamra na village near Panipat. The shooters forced her friends out of the vehicle before pumping bullets into her.On Wednesday , Dahiya's sister Lata , accused her estranged husband, Dinesh Mathur, of masterminding the killing. Kumar is currently in Tihar Jail having been charged with raping Dahiya and murdering her mother in 2014. Senior police officers accordingly said that Mathur was now the prime suspect and have applied to take him into custody for questioning. Preliminary investiga tions suggest that the killers were tailing the victim for some time before stopping her car," said Rahul Sharma, superintendent of police, Panipat. "So far we have not found anything to link the murder to a political person or a person rival."The cops suspect contract killers were involved in the incident.Having received threats to her life in the past few days, Dahiya challenged her enemies to make good on their threats in a Facebook Live video moments before the shooting, said her friend Nisha and driver Sanjeev, who survived the shooting.In the video post, Dahiya apparently claimed that once home she would publicise the numbers and addresses of the people threatening her. She asserted that people would be shocked to learn of two of the main people she alleged was behind the threats.The trio was returning from a meeting of farmers and ex-servicemen from 26 villages, organised by the Krantikari Students Organisation. At the event, she had spoken out forcefully against some politicians of Haryana.On their way , a black Ford Figo car blocked their way on the stretch between Chamrana and Kakroda village. Sanjeev told police later that two men asked him and Nisha to get out. When Dahiya protested, the men removed the ignition key and opened fire at her. Nisha and Sanjeev ran to a nearby field and hid among the crops. After shooting the singer, the men drove towards Kakroda, Sanjeev told the cops.The cops are veering to the strong possibility of Mathur's involvement in the murder because Dahiya was the only eye witness to her mother's murder and also the complainant in the rape case against the former. For six months now, Mathur has allegedly made constant threats to her life if she did not stand down as a witness in the 2014 case.Meanwhile, forensic examinations revealed that the two assailants fired eight bullets from pointblank range at Dahiya from two different weapons of .9mm and .32 bores. One bullet hit the singer in the centre of her chest, while rest were peppered across her head and neck.The cops have picked up the details of mobile phones of the people who were in touch with Dahiya and her associates before and after the incident. Police feel that some insider could have been sharing minute-to-minute information of the woman's movements. The cops are also probing whether the producers of one of her music videos, with whom she had had professional misunderstandings, were involved.

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