New Delhi:
Two brothers were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly kidnapping and killing a 50-year-old man at their Kirari Suleman Nagar, Prem Nagar-III, Delhi accommodation on February 19, police said on Wednesday.
Police said the duo stuffed the man’s body in a sack, transported it on their scooter and threw it in the Najafgarh drain, nearly seven kilometres away from their home. The decomposed body of the victim was recovered near Chandan Vihar in Nilothi Extension on Tuesday, five days after he went missing.
Police identified the brothers as Sonu, 24, and Mehboob Ali, 20, who runs a dhaba. The victim was identified as Ajay Kumar Jha, a financier.
During interrogation, it was revealed that the motive behind the murder was financial distress. The brothers had taken a loan of ₹4 lakh from Jha at a monthly interest of 10% around seven months ago, but they were unable to repay the principal amount as paying ₹40,000 every month was difficult for them. Thus, the brothers planned to kill Jha to avoid repaying the loan, said additional commissioner of police (additional CP) Rohini, Rajeev Ranjan.
Ranjan said that on February 20, a missing person complaint was lodged at Aman Vihar police station by Jha’s brother Vijay Kumar Jha. He told police that Jha left his Rohini Sector 20 residence the previous evening on his motorcycle and did not come back. A case of kidnapping or abduction for murder or ransom was registered under Section 140 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on February 23, when the victim could not be found.
During the probe, a team led by assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Ajay Vedwal and station house officer (SHO) Vijay Samaria scanned CCTV cameras of the routes the victim had taken on February 19 to trace him and his motorcycle, said police. Investigators found a person with a muffled face parking Ajay’s motorcycle at an abandoned place in Prem Nagar on February 20 evening. The call detail records of the victim were also examined, said the additional CP.
“Technical investigation revealed that Ajay’s phone’s location was in Kirari Suleman Nagar and he had last spoken to Sonu and Ali. During their interrogation, they confessed to killing Ajay at their room with a meat cleaver on February 19, when he visited them to collect the monthly interest money,” the additional CP added.
“They knew Ajay for the past couple of years as he also supplied polythene bags to their dhaba,” said the investigator.