Delhi ACP son killed in tiff over loan of ₹30K, body yet to be found: Cops

Investigators added that the first suspect, Abhishek Kumar, 19, who was formally arrested in the case on Friday was sent to three days police custody by a local court.

The main suspect in the murder of the son of an assistant commissioner of Delhi Police killed him over a loan of ₹30,000 that the former had taken from the victim, the Delhi Police on Saturday said.

Delhi ACP son killed in tiff over loan of ₹30K, body yet to be found: Cops

Investigators added that the first suspect, Abhishek Kumar, 19, who was formally arrested in the case on Friday, after he confessed to the crime, was sent to three days police custody by a local court.

Vishal Bhardwaj, the prime suspect in the case, and Kumar had allegedly killed the victim, Lakshya Chauhan, a practising lawyer, by pushing him into the Munak Canal in Panipat while the three were returning from a wedding function in Bhiwani, investigators have said. The police are yet to find Chauhan’s body but have confirmed his murder based on Kumar’s interrogation and evidence found during the investigation so far.

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Chauhan, the son of ACP Yashpal Singh (operations, outer north) — left the two suspects to attend a wedding in Bhiwani, Haryana on Monday. After Kumar confessed to killing Chouhan along with Bharadwaj – a court accountant – the police have added sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) to the initial missing person’s complaint filed in the case.

A senior officer of Delhi Police said that based on the technical and manual intelligence, the police have identified the exact location of Bhardwaj’s hiding at a place in Haryana. “A team has already been dispatched to nab him, and he is expected to be arrested by late Saturday night. For the recovery of Chauhan’s body, teams of NDRF have also been deployed at multiple points across the canal, and divers are trying to locate the body,” he said, asking not to be named.

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Giving details of the revelations made by Kumar during his initial interrogation, the officer said that as per Kumar, Chauhan was murdered as he had loaned some money to Bhardwaj and despite repeated reminders, the accountant was not returning the money, leading to multiple altercations between them. “He disclosed before the police that while returning to Delhi from the venue of the wedding, Chauhan and Bharadwaj fought over the same issue, leading to a scuffle in which Chauhan was killed. Kumar claims that the body was thrown into a canal near Panipat. Kumar was produced before the court of link metropolitan magistrate Rohit Kumar on Saturday, who granted his three days’ custodial remand to the police,” he said.

He, however, said that the police can’t totally rely on Kumar’s statements. “The whole picture will be cleared after the arrest of Bhardwaj. It is learnt that Chauhan was carrying ₹50,000 cash in his car. We can’t rule out that the duo killed Chauhan for looting the money and his car,” he said.