A 21-year-old man’s blind murder case — that happened in outer Delhi’s Rohini three weeks ago — turned out to be the result of a snatching, Delhi Police said on Friday, after arresting the seven alleged killers.
The police’s probe in the case began on December 30, when a call reporting a murder was received at Begumpur police station in Rohini, Hindustan Times reported.
The victim was identified as Subhash alias Bahadur (referred by his single name in police records), HT quoted PK Mishra, deputy commissioner of police (Rohini) saying.
Police said they had earlier arrested two men after looking at the CCTV footage of the incident. But those arrested men told the police that they had just helped the prime suspect, without knowing the motive.
Earlier this week, the police then arrested Gaurav alias Himanshu and Sawan Sharma – the duo who were among a group of seven men that had carried out the killing.
What emerged later was a tale of snatching that had ultimately led to Subhash’s murder.
“Twenty days before his murder, Subhash had snatched ₹200 from Gaurav’s uncle,” said the DCP, adding that the snatching victim had not reported the matter to the police. The alleged snatcher had fled on foot after the crime.
Gaurav, 27, has eight previous criminal cases against him and would proclaim himself as the next Neeraj Bawana of Delhi, the DCP said. Bawana, until his arrest in 2015, was one of the most wanted gangsters in Delhi with many cases of murder, robbery, extortion, and other such crimes against him in police records.
“So, while being targeted by Subhash, the man had warned him that he was the uncle of Gaurav who would seek revenge later,” Mishra said.
Subhash still went ahead with the snatching. He also took the threat on his ego, police said. Subhash and Gaurav lived in the same neighborhood of Begumpur and knew each other, but they were practically rivals in the crime world, the DCP said.
“Subhash himself aspired to be a big criminal someday. He couldn’t come to terms with the fact that one of his victims tried to intimidate him by taking the name of his rival,” the DCP said.
So, Subhash uploaded a video on Facebook in which he ‘openly challenged and threatened’ Gaurav. Soon after, Gaurav got to know of the video and decided to teach Subhash a lesson.
On December 30, Gaurav, his friend Sawan along with five others caught Subhash and beat him till he died. The police said that Subhash had been lured to Sharma’s house on some pretext and beaten to death over there.
They also recorded a video of the killing to send a “message” to anyone challenging Gaurav in the future, the DCP said.
The police said that they got to know of Gaurav’s hideout by interrogating his wife and Sawan’s hideout by questioning his friend. Sawan also has six previous criminal cases against him.
