Rewari: Cab robbery probe exposes PhD scholar’s revenge murder plot

Police say the plan was fuelled by a decades-old grudge over an attack on the accused’s policeman father and involved stockpiling weapons.

A probe into an armed cab robbery in Rewari unwittingly led investigators to an elaborate, years-long plot allegedly by a PhD scholar to murder a convicted criminal in a bid to avenge an attack on his father, a disabled police officer, more than three decades ago, police said on Tuesday.

The accused allegedly took loans worth ₹45 lakh and planned to use a stolen cab for an attack linked to a 1992 police case. (File photo)

The case began in the early hours of December 16, when two men – Devanshu (32) from Ajmer in Rajasthan and Shubham Verma (31) from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh – hired a cab from Delhi to Jaipur. At Banipur Chowk on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, they allegedly shot the driver, Sanjay Kumar (36), in the leg, took him hostage, and later threw him out on Circular Road before fleeing with the vehicle to Rajasthan.

An FIR was registered at Kasola police station in Rewari. Within eight hours, a crime branch team arrested the duo from Bhairavgarh in Rajasthan. During interrogation on police remand, a far more sinister plan emerged.

According to police, Devanshu, a PhD student in astrology at Jaipur University, allegedly revealed he had been preparing for over a year and a half to murder Vinod Fedrick, a 65-year-old convicted drug smuggler and history-sheeter from Ajmer. Police said Devanshu’s father, Suraj Bhan, was a Rajasthan police constable who had arrested Fedrick in 1992 for murder.

The day Fedrick was released, Bhan was allegedly struck by a speeding vehicle, leaving him with lifelong mental and physical disabilities. Devanshu, born two months after the incident, grew up believing Fedrick was responsible for his father’s condition – a motive that festered into a detailed plan for revenge.

To finance his plot, Devanshu allegedly took loans totaling approximately ₹45 lakh from banks, relatives, and friends. He enlisted his friend Shubham Verma, and their plan to loot a cab was intended to secure a vehicle for a planned attack in Ajmer.

Police recovered a large cache of equipment from locations in Rewari and Bhairavgarh, including 329 live cartridges, seven pistols, five magazines, six walkie-talkie sets with five chargers, a binocular, a GPS detector, jammers, a handcuff, five cans of pepper spray, gloves, four mobile phones, four fraudulently issued SIM cards and other items. The weapons were allegedly purchased from an arms smuggler in Meerut, while electronic items were sourced from e-commerce platforms and shops near Red Fort in Delhi. The recoveries were made from a cliff in Rewari and Bhairavgarh in Rajasthan, police said.

“They were taken on police remand till Monday for detailed interrogation, during which they confessed to the plot… Their plan failed as they were caught within hours of the loot, which uncovered their entire conspiracy,” said deputy superintendent of police (Bawal) Surender Sheoran.