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Man held for murdering friend over ₹20,000 debt
Gurugram: Three days after a decomposed and charred body of a 30-year-old tractor driver was found from a well in Bilaspur, the police on Monday arrested his friend
Gurugram: Three days after a decomposed and charred body of a 30-year-old tractor driver was found from a well in Bilaspur, the police on Monday arrested his friend for allegedly killing him after a fight over a debt settlement.
The police said the incident took place on the night of February 3 when the victim, Manoj Kumar, and the suspect, Tarachand Sethi, 32, were drinking liquor behind a logistics warehouse near Kalwari.
According to the police, Tarachand had given a loan of ₹20,000 to Manoj and the latter had been asking for more money so that he could buy a mobile phone from an online marketplace.
Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that a fight broke out between them over the issue and the suspect hit a liquor bottle on the victim’s neck. “Then he bludgeoned his head with stones and after murdering him, threw his body in a well. He took some pieces of wood that they had lit to protect themselves from the cold and threw them in the well to burn the body,” said Sangwan.
Manoj’s brother, Anil Kumar, had filed a police complaint at Bilaspur police station on February 6, stating that his brother had gone to work in Tauru on February 3 morning and had been missing since, the police said. In the police complaint, Anil had said that Tarachand, a resident of Pathreri village, had told him that he and Manoj had consumed liquor near Kalwari in the evening and he had left for his house after that.
On the morning of February 7, the victim’s shoe was found near the crime spot and some blood stains had led the police to the well, from where his body was recovered.
A police official privy to the investigation, requesting anonymity, said that Tarachand, who works as a security guard, had told the victim’s wife over phone that he was not aware of her husband’s whereabouts after their drinking session.
According to the police, the victim’s wife informed the police that Tarachand and her husband had met on February 3 evening, following which the police detained him from Pathreri village on Sunday for questioning. “Earlier, the suspect tried to mislead the police. But after sustained interrogation, he confessed to the murder,” said the police official.
Tarachand was produced in a district court and sent to police custody for three days, the official said.
In another incident, the police on Sunday arrested a 30-year-old financier from Sector 31 for allegedly murdering a man after he expressed inability to repay a loan of ₹40,000. The police said that the suspect, Lavan Batra, picked up Bunty Hasija in his car on Friday night and after getting Hasija drunk, he had a fight with him.
The assistant commissioner of police said that after the alleged confrontation, Batra dropped Hasija on Madhav Bhavan road in Sector 12 and ran his car over him. “He drove the car over his body multiple times and then went to his house. He took some petrol from his motorcycle and returned to Sector 12 road and tried to burn his body. The victim’s slightly burnt body with head injuries was found on Saturday morning,” said Sangwan.
According to the police, after the murder, the suspect did not return to his house and was hiding at multiple locations before he was nabbed from Sector 31. His car, with bloodstains, has been recovered, said the police.
