Three held for murder of husband of sarpanch

The police arrested three suspected criminals, who had allegedly shot dead a 37-year-old man, who was the husband of the sarpanch of Alipur village, in Sohna on July 15, 2020. The police said they have confessed to killing the victim to avenge the murder of their close aide Ashok Rathi — a dreaded gangster, who was shot dead in his village on November 15, 2019.

The police allegedly recovered five pistols, four countrymade pistols, 36 live cartridges, two mobile phones and one Wi-Fi dongle from their possession.

The police had announced a reward of ₹1 lakh for any information leading to arrest of each of the suspects, said the police.

Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that these they had formed three crime teams to investigate the case. On early Saturday morning, they received a tip-off and raided a few locations on Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway, leading to their arrests. “The suspects revealed that they suspected the role of the victim, Manoj Kumar Dagar, in Ashok Rathi’s murder. They wanted to take revenge. They followed Dagar and shot him dead,” he said.

The suspects were identified as Bharat Kumar (20) of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Mohit Singh (27) of Faridabad and Puneet Singh (24) of Farukhnagar in Gurugram.

Sangwan said Bharat Kumar was the one who had fired bullets, following which the victim had collapsed. The other two were present with him at the spot. They were ready with loaded guns so that the could shoot at the victim, if he tried to escape,

The suspects are involved in more than two dozen cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, kidnapping, loot, robbery and snatching in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, said the police.

The police said suspects had helped Rathi escape from the UP police custody while they were on their way to produce him before the Gururgam court in 2014.

Earlier, the police had arrested four suspects, who were also members of this gang, in connection of the murder.

The shooting took place on July 15, around 4pm. Manoj Dagar was shot dead when he had gone to a private hospital with his nine-year-old daughter, who was suffering from mild fever. He had parked his SUV outside the hospital in Sohna. The police said after the check-up, he and his daughter got back into the car, when the suspect shot at him through the car’s window pane from the driver’s side. Dagar, who was seated behind the wheel, was shot in the neck while his daughter was unharmed.

Dagar died while undergoing treatment at a private hospital on August 12 night, said the police.