Jalandhar, July 17: After ramming into 114-year-old marathon legend Fauja Singh in a fatal hit-and-run, Amritpal Singh Dhillon—an NRI recently returned from Canada—parked his Toyota Fortuner SUV in the garage of his Dasupur village home, covered it, and began using a motorcycle to avoid detection, police said on Wednesday.
Dhillon, 26, was arrested from his house on Tuesday evening following an intensive 30-hour search by Jalandhar Rural Police. Officers said he initially did not realise the identity of the man he had struck, but later that night came to know it was the legendary marathoner. As the third owner of the SUV, and with no updated records in his name, Dhillon believed he would not be caught quickly.
“He tried every possible way to dodge us,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Harvinder Singh Virk. “After the crash, he left the highway and used village roads to reach home, which limited available CCTV footage. Still, we treated this as a challenge.”
The breakthrough came when police recovered broken parts from the crash site. “We took those parts to a Toyota dealership and determined the model—a 2009 Fortuner,” Virk said. “Insurance records finally led us to a phone number, which we tracked to Dhillon. When we reached his house, he confessed.”
Since the crash on Monday, Dhillon had avoided driving the SUV and was seen casually riding a bike in the area. The SUV’s left headlight area was visibly damaged, but he had made no attempt to repair it, police said.
A special team, including SPs Sarabjit Rai and Parminder S Heer, DSP Adampur Kulwant Singh, and Inspectors Hardevpreet Singh and Pushp Bali, worked on all leads to track him down.
During questioning, Dhillon told police he had returned to India on June 23 after losing his Indian passport in Canada. He came back using an emergency certificate. A Class 12 graduate, he had travelled to Canada on a tourist visa and later secured a work permit, valid until 2027. He had been working there as a labourer.
His mother and three sisters live in Canada. His father is deceased. Since returning, he had been overseeing repairs to his house and managing about 12 acres of agricultural land.
Police confirmed that Dhillon had no prior criminal record. He was produced in court on Wednesday and remanded to judicial custody.
