Delhi: 71-yr-old hires contract killers to murder wife; bedridden son among 4 held

Police said they cracked the case hours after Pooja Wadhwa, 35, was murdered, and have arrested her husband SK Gupta, his son Amit, 45, and the two people who killed her

A 71-year-old man hired two people to murder his estranged wife, 35, at their home in west Delhi’s Subash Nagar to avoid paying alimony to her, police officers aware of the case said, adding that the man’s bedridden son was also involved in planning the murder.

Police said SK Gupta married Pooja Wadhwa in the hope that she would look after his bedridden son in the coming years. However, their relationship soured, and she wanted to separate from him. She was demanding ₹1 crore as alimony for divorce, said police. (Representational Image)

Police said they cracked the case hours after Pooja Wadhwa was murdered on Wednesday afternoon, and have arrested her husband SK Gupta, his son Amit, 45, and the two people who killed her.

“They have all confessed to their roles in the murder,” said Ghanshyam Bansal, deputy commissioner of police (west).

Giving details of the case, Bansal said Gupta is a chartered accountant who lived with his son Amit, who suffers from cerebral palsy, at Rajouri Apartments in Subhash Nagar. Gupta and Wadhwa got married in November 2022, he said.

“Gupta married Wadhwa in the hope that she would look after his bedridden son in the coming years. However, things were not going according to plan, the relationship between Gupta and Wadhwa soured, and she wanted to separate from him. The woman was demanding ₹1 crore as alimony for divorce,” the DCP said.

The DCP said that Gupta did not want to pay Wadhwa the alimony. “So, he got in touch with Vipin Sethi, who would regularly help take Amit to hospital. Gupta and his son discussed their plan of getting Wadhwa killed with Sethi, who agreed to kill her and demanded ₹10 lakh,” Bansal said.

Sethi allegedly roped in his friend Himanshu, 20, for the murder, police said.

Bansal said Gupta paid the two ₹2.40 lakh upfront, with the remainder to be paid after the murder.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sethi and Himanshu entered the Rajouri Apartments house and stabbed Wadhwa to death. To pass the murder off as a case of robbery gone wrong, Bansal said, they ransacked the house and stole Wadhwa’s and Amit’s mobiles.

“They also ended up injuring themselves with the knives,” said Bansal.

Police received a call about the murder at 2.45pm, and found Wadhwa’s body with multiple injury marks. “The body language of the father-son duo was suspicious. We interrogated them to realise they were involved in the killing. At their instance, we arrested the two suspects (Sethi and Himanshu) within hours of the murder,” said the DCP, adding that the police then went on to arrest Gupta and Amit.