November 19, 2012 - 10:45 AMT
Indian police launches probe into tycoon brothers’ murder

Police in the Indian capital, Delhi, have questioned a number of people in connection with the killings of a controversial liquor baron and his brother in a shootout, BBC News reported.

Ponty Chadha and his younger brother, Hardeep, were killed in a farmhouse following a property dispute.

Exact details of the incident on Saturday,November 19 are still unclear. But according to one version Hardeep shot his brother, leading to an exchange of gunfire between two sides. The two brothers were cremated in the capital on Sunday evening

Reports say Delhi police questioned 15 people, including security guards, in connection with the incident which happened in a farmhouse owned by the family on the outskirts of Delhi.

Family lawyer Gaurang Kanth said there were a "lot of problems regarding the property settlement" between the two brothers after the death of their businessman father Kulwant Singh Chadha last year.

Ponty Chadha, whose formal name was Gurdeep Singh Chadha, was in his fifties. He ran a liquor business which was estimated to be worth over $1bn and was mostly concentrated in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. He also had interests in real estate, shopping malls, sugar mills and film production.

Mr Chadha was very close to a number of ruling and opposition politicians in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand.