Delhi: Three held for stabbings, fourth suspect killed in accident

Police said their interrogation led to the recovery of the knife that was used in the two stabbing cases

The police on Friday arrested two suspects and apprehended a juvenile accomplice in connection with two separate stabbing incidents that took place within an hour of each other on the night of November 30. A fourth suspect, police said, was killed in a road accident nearly seven hours after the gang allegedly committed the two crimes.

Police said the fourth suspect was killed in a road accident nearly seven hours after the gang allegedly committed the two crimes. (Picture for representation only)

Explaining the sequence of events, police said the gang of four first stabbed a man for resisting a robbery in south-west Delhi’s Mohan Garden. The victim, 32-year-old AC mechanic Saroj Kumar, was stabbed multiple times in his abdomen, back and thigh before the gang robbed him of his cellphone and fled on their motorcycles, police said.

The second victim, a contractual conductor with the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), was stabbed near the waist by the four following an altercation. Although the DTC conductor, Surender Singh, was not robbed, the police suspect that the four may have waylaid him with the intention of robbing him. However, despite being stabbed, Singh managed to flee and reached the nearest police booth. That probably saved his life and belongings, the police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Shankar Choudhary said the arrested men were identified as Karan,22, and Mohammad Sohail,21. They were arrested on Thursday by the investigating team of Mohan Garden police station. Their interrogation led to the recovery of the knife that was used in the two stabbing cases. The minor boy was also apprehended the same day.

The fourth suspect, identified as Arju alias Razzak, was killed in a road accident nearly seven hours after the two crimes. The accident took place in Dwarka’s Sector 4 and the motorcycle that Arju and Karan were riding on was hit by an unknown vehicle, a senior police officer associated with the probe said.

The incidents, latest in a series of street crimes in which the victims suffered fatal or serious injuries besides losing their property, took place between 9pm and 10pm near Old Palam Road on November 30.

In his statement, the first victim Saroj Kumar told the police that he was returning home after work when the suspects cornered him and stabbed him multiple times before fleeing with his cellphone.

Second victim Surender Singh said he had stopped his motorcycle to relieve himself when he was attacked by the four persons. He ran towards the police booth after being stabbed and raised the alarm. The suspects who were chasing him fled on seeing the police, the officer said.

Delhi Police statistics show that cases of robbery have increased by nearly 14% this year (till October 31) when compared with the corresponding period last year. In numbers, the city saw 1,606 cases of robbery between January 1 and October 30 last year. This year, during the same period, 1,829 robberies were reported, police data showed.

The data further revealed that Delhi reported 7,504 snatching cases till October 31 this year — 1,186 more than the cases reported during the same period in 2020.

In a series of reports on crime in Delhi in March, HT had reported that unemployed, illiterate, school drop-outs, arrested for the first time are a common thread that connect almost every person arrested for snatching in Delhi since 2018, highlighting how one of the most serious concerns on the streets of the national capital is also its biggest gateway crime.