Police crack 35-year-old’s murder, with help from a non-existent NASA satellite

The murder came to light on April 5, when a call was received at Mangolpuri police station regarding a man lying injured in a park near Outer Ring Road.

Delhi Police arrested a house painter and a sales agent for allegedly bludgeoning their 35-year-old friend to death in outer Delhi’s Mangolpuri.

A police team that reached the spot found that the man had been bludgeoned to death.(Representational photo/Getty Images)

While there were no eyewitnesses to prove their involvement, police said they managed to elicit a confession from the accused -- Mangolpuri residents Pradeep, 32, who works as a sales agent for a private company, and Raju, 35, a daily wage painter -- after convincing them that their alleged crime was captured on a non-existent NASA surveillance satellite. Seeing no way out, police said the accused allegedly admitted that they killed the accused during a fight over regularly using foul language.

The murder came to light on April 5, when a call was received at Mangolpuri police station regarding a man lying injured in a park near Outer Ring Road. A police team that reached the spot found that the man had been bludgeoned to death. His body was moved to a mortuary for post mortem examination and a case of murder was registered.

Deputy commissioner of police (outer) Parvinder Singh said the victim was identified as Chandarbhan, a 35-year-old resident of Mongolpuri. “During preliminary investigation, it was revealed that he was last seen with two men on a motorcycle. Several people were questioned and CCTV footages were checked and finally our teams managed to identify the duo as Pradeep and Raju, both residents of the same area. But when they were detained for questioning along with other suspects, they refused any involvement,” said Singh.

The DCP said the team was headed towards a dead-end as there were no eye witness to the crime. “Our teams rechecked the inputs and sequence of crime and when it was established that these two were definitely involved in the crime, they were told that the area in which Chandrabhan was killed is under continuous surveillance of NASA’s satellite cameras and that their entire act has been recorded,” said Singh.

Thinking their act has been caught, the two allegedly confessed to having committed the murder. “It seems Chandrabhan used to often abuse them whenever he consumed alcohol. To teach him a lesson, on April 4, they took Chandrabhan to the park on the pretext of consuming alcohol. Once he was inebriated, they warned him to never abuse them again. This led to a fight during which the duo used stones and bludgeoned him to death,” the DCP said.