Man hired by money lender to kill 38-year-old customs clearance agent, arrested in west Delhi

A 40-year-old man was arrested from west Delhi’s Subhash Nagar for allegedly being hired by a money lender to kill a person over a monetary dispute, police said.

New Delhi: A 40-year-old man was arrested from west Delhi’s Subhash Nagar 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 percent 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 Mukesh to give information about the victim’s movements, they said. Kohli was later found dead with bullet injuries in neighboring 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. He stated that his son was shot dead by someone near Kharkhoda in Sonipat and the body bore six gunshot wounds.

The victim’s father had last spoken to Kohli over mobile phone on July 29 at 8.13 pm while his daughter-in-law spoke to the victim around 8.30 pm, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Urvija Goel said when family members were questioned, it surfaced that Kohli was in debt and had borrowed the money from Manoj. He was unable to repay the amount so a dispute arose and Manoj had been regularly threatening him, Goel said.

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“Manoj’s mobile number was found to be switched off since the incident and further inquiry revealed that Kohli was last seen at Singh Chicken Corner, Jail Road, Hari Nagar, where he was a regular visitor 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,” she said.

Accused Mukesh was in regular touch with Manoj and from CCTV analysis and ground verification, it was established that Mukesh was also present at the same restaurant on July 29, police said. “During interrogation, Mukesh disclosed that he was hired by Manoj to give information about the movement of Kohli and was paid cash for this work. He did a recce of Kohli's movement for 10 days and passed all the information to Manoj,” said DCP Goel.

“On July 29, when Kohli came outside Singh Chicken Corner and boarded an auto-rickshaw at 10.15 pm, Mukesh along with another associate immediately passed this information to Manoj, who was present there with three other associates and all of them started following him on two different two-wheelers,' she said.

'After some distance, they overpowered him in his auto-rickshaw and took him to an unknown place and then murdered him in Sonipat,” the police officer said. Raids are being conducted to arrest the remaining accused including Manoj, who has two murder and attempt to murder cases registered at Najafgarh police station.

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PTI