The Delhi police, with the arrest of eight persons, claimed to have solved the Mehrauli shootout case, where one person was killed and another seriously injured after a group of assailants open fire near Lado Sarai T-point in Mehrauli last week.
One Tata Safari, one Skoda car and one automatic pistol, used in the commission of the crime, have been recovered, the police said. The identity of the accused has been established by the police, of which four persons — Neeraj (31), Arvind Kumar Gupta (30), Karanjit (22) and Kartik (30) — are property dealers and are involved in various criminal cases. The other accused have been identified as Ravinder Pawar (24), Kamal (30), Jagmohan Sagar (30) and Dhrup (28). An FIR under the Arms Act was registered at Mehrauli police station on March 9.
“Our inquiries revealed that the assailants and the victims were known to each other and had a long-pending money dispute,” District commissioner of police Prem Nath said.
According to the police, the incident took place on March 9 at about 11 am as three persons in a Tata Safari had a heated argument with one Narendar, who was sitting at a tea stall in Lado Sarai, and left after that. The police said later that afternoon at about 1.30 pm, some persons came in one Tata Safari and one Skoda and started firing at Sanjay, Ashok, Narendar, Sandeep and Surender. Mr Nath said, “Surender and Sandeep received gunshots and were rushed to the hospital. Surender, who was shifted to AIIMS Trauma Centre due to his critical condition, succumbed to his injuries and Sandeep is undergoing treatment at Max Hospital in Saket.”
“Several police teams were formed — specialised units of the districts i.e. STF, special staff and AATS and several teams of south district. After conducting various raids in hideouts across Delhi, Aligarh, Kanpur, Varanasi and other places, the teams nabbed the main accused Neeraj and picked several others for questioning. Four others were arrested on Sunday morning.”
During sustained interrogation, the accused revealed that Neeraj had a monetary dispute with Narendar, who threatened Neeraj of dire consequences if he did not return his money, the police said. Neeraj decided to take revenge and called his associates who arranged weapons and vehicles and after the shootout, fled the scene, the police said. According to the police, further investigation is in progress and the hunt for one Rohit, who is absconding, is continuing.
