Delhi: Man hired to kill customs clearance agent arrested
(Sourced from PTI)
A 40-year-old man was arrested from the Subhash Nagar area in west Delhi for allegedly being hired by a money lender to kill a person over a monetary dispute, police said on Tuesday. Mukesh Chopra, a resident of Ashok Nagar, was hired by the main accused identified as Manoj, a money lender from Dichaon Kalan, to kill 38-year-old Gautam Kohli, a customs clearance agent.
Police said Kohli, a resident of west Delhi's Rajouri Garden, was said to be in financial crisis and had borrowed Rs. 25 lakh at a 20% interest rate from the moneylender. When Kohli failed to return the borrowed amount, Manoj initially issued threats but later planned to kill him and hired Chopra to give information about the victim's movements, they said.
Kohli was later found dead with six bullet injuries in Haryana's Sonipat district. According to police, Kohli's father reported at Subhash Nagar police post on July 30 that his son was found dead near the roadside of Kharkhoda-Bahadurgarh main road by the Sonipat police.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Urvija Goel said, "When family members were questioned, it surfaced that Kohli had borrowed the money from Manoj. He was unable to repay the amount so a dispute arose and Manoj had been regularly threatening him." Manoj's mobile number was found to be switched off since the incident.
Further inquiry revealed that Kohli was last seen at Singh Chicken Corner, Jail Road, Hari Nagar, and he left from there at 10:15 pm. Technical surveillance revealed that Manoj was also present near the same restaurant till 10:30 pm.
From CCTV analysis and ground verification, it was established that Chopra was also present at the same restaurant on July 29. During interrogation, Chopra disclosed that he was hired and paid cash by Manoj to give information about Kohli's movement. He did a recce of Kohli's movement for 10 days and passed all the information to Manoj.
On July 29, when Kohli boarded an auto-rickshaw at 10:15 pm, Chopra immediately passed this information to Manoj, who was present there with three associates, and all of them started following him on two different two-wheelers. "After some distance, they overpowered him in his auto-rickshaw and took him to an unknown place and then murdered him in Sonipat," DCP Goel said.
