‘Perfect’ murder in southeast Delhi

A rivalry rooted in a local quarrel and a murderous plot hatched just a few months ago not far away from his southeast Delhi home claimed the life of a 30-year-old alleged small-time criminal on Thursday afternoon, the police said.

A rivalry rooted in a local quarrel and a murderous plot hatched just a few months ago not far away from his southeast Delhi home claimed the life of a 30-year-old alleged small-time criminal on Thursday afternoon, the police said.|

Kapil Dev, a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker, had a heated verbal spat bordering on violence with a “group of goons” from Pul Prahladpur months before being killed with surgical precision.

“The plot seems to have been planned to the T,” said an officer investigating the incident. “The men who executed it were aware of the precise moment when Kapil would exit the Saket court complex, where he would go and when he could be attacked.”

Several police teams are investigating the incident and have identified three to four men behind it. Sources said arrests of the suspects in areas bordering the capital were likely by Thursday night.

The police said Kapil’s affiliation to the BJP and consequent rivalry over development in the Sangam Vihar and Pul Prahladpur areas were possibly behind the murderous bid.

“For all we know, the men who killed Kapil were probably goons hired by a rival group to settle a local political issue. This is being investigated,” the officer said. A section of the police also believes that his death could be in revenge for the murder of one Dileep, a couple of months ago, in the area. They suspect the involvement of Kamaal, who is Dileep’s brother.

According to sources in the police, Kapil, who was aboard a Mahindra XUV vehicle before he was shot, had alighted from the vehicle near the area’s central park when two men on a black Pulsar motorcycle halted near him and opened fire.

“He was shot twice by what seems to be a country-made pistol before the assailants fled. The killers fired warning shots in the air to ward off witnesses and Kapil’s two associates,” the officer said.

He was rushed to the Batra Hospital where doctors declared him dead before his body was sent to the AIIMS Trauma Centre where it has been preserved for a post-mortem.