MP bus conductor shot dead helper on Delhi road, claimed stray bullet killed him

MP bus conductor, Amit Pateria, and driver Azad Khan who helped him cover up the murder, were arrested by southeast district police

NEW DELHI: A bus conductor of a Madhya Pradesh bus allegedly shot dead the vehicle’s helper during an argument over an abusive remark and tried to cover up the murder, claiming that the helper dropped dead after being hit by a stray bullet near the Sarai Kale Khan interstate bus terminal on Thursday morning.

Police said the murder took place in the private bus from Madhya Pradesh when it was in the Sarai Kale Khan area on Thursday (HT Photo/Sanjeev Verma)

Amit Pateria, the 26-year-old conductor of the private bus that operated between Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, and the bus driver, Azad Khan, 40, have been arrested on charges of killing the helper, Roop Singh Yadav, and trying to mislead the police, said deputy commissioner of police (southeast) Rajesh Deo.

Deo said the bus driver and the conductor hadn’t thought through their story and frequently changed their versions. Besides, the gunshot injury - he was shot in the chest - was not consistent with a stray bullet entered the bus through the window and hit Yadav.

Scrutiny of the footage from CCTV cameras also pointed to other holes in the story.

They found that the bus crossed one spot at Sarai Kale Khan and returned to the same place after some minutes.

“Also, between two CCTV cameras installed at separate locations that usually should be a 2-minute drive, the bus took over 10 minutes to travel, suggesting that it had stopped in between,” Deo told HT.

“The two were confronted with the evidence that questioned their claims. They broke down and confessed to their crimes, said an officer from the Sarai Kale Khan police post, who was of the investigating team.

It transpired that the bus left from MP’s Chhatarpur on Wednesday and reached Sarai Kale Khan terminal 650km away on Thursday at 7am. After dropping off the passengers, the bus was on its way to Kashmere Gate.

But an altercation broke out over an abusive remark used by Yadav for the bus conductor. “It enraged Pateria, who took out the pistol from the driver’s cabin and shot Yadav. The bullet hit Yadav on the chest, killing him on the spot,” the police officer cited above said.

DCP Deo said Pateria and Khan panicked after Yadav died on the spot. They quickly came up with the story that a stray bullet fired by somebody outside the bus was responsible.

They drove the bus with the body towards the Yamuna Khadar area, hid the pistol under some bushes and returned to the Sarai Kale flyover from where they made a call to the police control room.

“It was Pateria who made the call around 7:30am… A police team reached the caller’s location and found the helper’s body lying between the long seat and the engine’s cover in the driver’s cabin,” added Deo.

Later, the two suspects also told the police that the country-made pistol was kept for their protection since they passed through areas where criminals troubled private bus operators by robbing them of their money or extorting money. “We are verifying their claims. There is a possibility that the conductor had been carrying the firearm to kill the helper, as they often had quarrels over various issues,” said a third officer, who did not want to be named, and added that the pistol used in the murder was recovered.