NEW DELHI: A 32-year-old homeless man was arrested for the murder of a 24-year-old man. The latter had allegedly misbehaved with a security guard who used to give food to the vagrant.
The accused, identified as Ravindra, resident of Etah, Uttar Pradesh, was caught five days after the murder, wearing the shoes of the deceased and selling oranges.
DCP (south) Ankit Chauhan said the disappearance of a person named Ajay was reported at Maidan Garhi police station on March 9. “During analysis of CCTV footages, the missing person was seen going towards DDA park, Rajpur Khurd Extension. The team checked the forested area and found a dead body which was identified as Ajay,” the DCP said. A case of murder was lodged and investigation was taken up.
During the probe, cops scanned footages from CCTV cameras installed in the vicinity of where the body was found, revealing that the deceased had entered the park with another person. They were not seen coming back.
The suspect could be seen talking over the phone in one of the footages, after which mobile details of the deceased were analyzed showing that the last incoming call to the deceased’s phone was made from his relative in Faridabad.
“The said relative told the police that a stranger had received the phone call that day and introduced himself as Aslam, telling him that the deceased had borrowed Rs 3,000 from him and given his mobile phone in return,” the official said.
All jhuggis around Chhatarpur and Rajpur were thoroughly searched by the cops in their efforts to nab the suspect. But he remained at large.
Then, a local shopkeeper informed the police that the suspect might have worked at an event management company at Rajpur Khurd. Subsequently, the owner of the company was questioned, who identified the suspect as Ravinder, saying he had earlier worked at the company as a labourer and resided in the godown but had recently left without a trace.
The suspect was finally traced to Sector-7 Dwarka. Closing in on him, the cops saw him selling oranges while wearing shoes of the deceased.
To avenge a friend...
Under interrogation, the accused said he had been living in the DDA park since February, where a person working as a security guard would give him food. On March 9, Ajay, under the influence of liquor, abused the guard, infuriating the accused who decided to avenge the act. “Initially, he befriended him. Then he purchased liquor to tempt the deceased into following him into the forest. When Ajay was drunk, he thrashed him before strangulating him to death,” the DCP said. The accused then pushed the body into shallow water and fled the scene after wrapping his face with an old T-shirt to avoid detection.