Gangster’s shooters open fire 30 bullets at Gurugram realtor’s office

The incident took place at around 9.20pm when the suspects arrived at the three-story building and opened fire with at least a dozen rounds hitting the building and adjoining structure.

Four unidentified suspects fired at least 30 rounds targeting the office of a realty firm in Sector-45 on Thursday night, presumably the fallout of an old financial dispute between a close relative of the owners and a notorious criminal hiding abroad, police said on Friday.

The bullet marks. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

As per police, the suspects had reached the scene on two motorcycles by 9.20pm and opened fire indiscriminately on the glass walls and two luxury cars on the ground floor of the three-story building used as an office space by Rohit Raheja, Neeraj and Mohit Raheja, joint owners of the realty firm named MNR Build Mark LLP. Dozens of bullet holes on glasses and the cars along with scattered shards were visible at the portico of the building after the incident.

Police officials said a notorious criminal named Deepak Nandal had allegedly claimed responsibility for the incident in a social media post which is being verified.

This is the third major incident in Gurugram in two months in which Nandal’s involvement cropped up. His shooters had opened fire on Haryanvi pop singer Rahul Yadav alias Fazilpuria in Sector-71 on July 14 to threaten him and later murdered his financier Rohit Shokeen by shooting him more than 25 times at Sector-77 on August 4 due to financial dispute with them.

DCP (East) Gaurav Rajpurohit said they have quizzed the three owners and their father Shravan Raheja, 65, a property dealer. “They all have categorically denied having enmity with anyone and also refuted having any investment or linkages with any criminal elements,” he said.

“The father told police that none of them have received any threat call or message in the past,” Rajpurohit said, adding, teams have been formed to carry out raids and nab the suspects as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a senior police official privy of the investigation said the firing in the real estate office took place due to financial dispute between Nandal and Nitin Talwar, a close relative of the Raheja family, and presently settled in New Zealand.

“Nandal had invested ₹30 lakh on a project of Talwar in Mumbai between 2018 and 2019. Recently, Nandal had contacted Talwar in New Zealand asking him to return his money but he didn’t respond,” the officer said.

He said Nandal came to know about his relationship with the Raheja family and thus got the firing done on their office in Sector-45.

A firm official told HT at the spot that three persons including caretakers were inside the building when firing had started. “They were cooking dinner. Terrified, they rushed to the basement and locked themselves. They had alerted the seniors and police while the suspects continued to fire bullets on the building for almost three to four minutes,” he said.

“We have provided CCTV camera footage of the incident to the police who told us that the suspects had carried out reconnaissance multiple times in the last 10 days to track the movement of all the people,” he said.

Another firm official said all their bosses had left the premises by 8.30pm.

“The suspects must have noticed the movements and opened fire to terrorise us when none were on the ground floor,” he said.

On complaint of a caretaker Rajesh Kumar who was inside the building at the time of firing, an FIR under various sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Arms Act was registered at the Sector-40 police station on Friday.