UP man shot dead, body burnt for refusing to call off relationship with ‘distant cousin’
Police said Ankit had been in a relationship with an 18-year-old woman who lives with her parents in Najafgarh. She had finished her schooling and was yet to begin her college education, said a senior police officer. Her father is a retired government employee.
A 25-year-old man was shot dead and his body burnt by three men in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat last week for refusing to call off his relationship with his “distant cousin”, the police said on Tuesday after arresting two of them from west Delhi’s Dwarka.
The police said the two men were arrested on Monday on a tip-off that they were carrying illegal weapons and it was by chance that their role in the murder emerged.
Until then, the victim’s family did not even know of his murder even as his body remained unidentified at a mortuary in Baghpat, said Anto Alphonse, deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka).
The officer identified the murdered man by his first name, Ankit, a native of Jhajjar in Haryana. Son of a farmer, Ankit lived in a rented house in Bahadurgarh and was looking for a job.
Police said Ankit had been in a relationship with an 18-year-old woman who lives with her parents in Najafgarh. She had finished her schooling and was yet to begin her college education, said a senior police officer. Her father is a retired government employee.
Police said the woman’s parents and other relatives were against her relationship with Ankit. “They disapproved of her relationship with a distant relative and also didn’t like the fact that Ankit was unemployed,” said the officer.
DCP Alphonse said the woman’s family had met Ankit and his parents to dissuade him from pursuing the relationship, but failed. “So, the woman’s 20-year-old cousin, Pramod, decided to kill Ankit. He roped in his two friends, Prakash and Atul who brought along three country made pistols,” said the DCP.
As per the plan, the trio allegedly met Ankit in Bahadurgarh for a booze party on August 20. “Once he was heavily drunk, they took Ankit to Baghpat Industrial Area where they shot him in his forehead and burnt his body to conceal his identity,” said the DCP.
The body was found by local residents on Friday, but the burnt face made the victim unidentifiable. “The body had decomposed and a leg appeared to have been eaten by some animal,” said the DCP.
While the Baghpat police remained clueless about the identity of the victim, Ankit’s parents remained oblivious to his murder. “He wasn’t in regular touch with his parents and would visit them once every few months. They didn’t even know that he had been missing for a week,” said the DCP.
Meanwhile in Delhi, a police team in Dwarka district on Monday received a tip-off that Prakash, a labourer in Najafgarh, could be tracked down with illegal pistols in Dwarka Sector 1. Police laid a trap and nabbed Prakash as well as Pramod who were allegedly carrying two pistols with them.
“The informer said Prakash had not been seen in Dwarka for about a week, so we began questioning him about his whereabouts during that period as well as the reason why he was carrying two pistols. During sustained interrogation, he revealed about the murder,” said an investigator.
The Delhi Police have alerted their counterparts in Baghpat to take the investigation forward.