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Neighbour among 3 held for murder of21-year-old Delhi man
He was shot twice at an isolated spot near Loni’s Tronica City on January 6 because he refused to return ₹15,000 to his friend and neighbour, Sandeep Baisoya, officials said.
Three people have been arrested after an exchange of fire in connection with the killing of a 21-year-old Delhi resident in Ghaziabad last week, police said on Tuesday, adding that one of the suspects was the victim’s 32-year-old neighbour.
Police identified the victim as Mohammad Sofiyan, a resident of north Delhi’s Wazirabad. He was shot twice at an isolated spot near Loni’s Tronica City on January 6 because he refused to return ₹15,000 to his friend and neighbour, Sandeep Baisoya, officials said.
Baisoya, along his two accomplices Divyanshu Kumar (20) and Sahil Seikh (23), was arrested from Pushta Road near Tronica City on Monday night, police said. Baisoya had previously been involved in a 2019 murder case and was released on bail in 2023.
Divyanshu and Sahil are residents of Chaman Vihar and Vijay Vihar in Loni, respectively.
Police said that a semi-burnt mobile phone belonging to the victim and CCTV footage from Wazirabad helped them trace and arrest the three suspects.
“On January 6, inspection of the scene of the crime led us to a half-burnt mobile phone at a garbage dump nearby. We got it repaired and, with the help of the IMEI number, we traced the phone as that of the deceased and contacted his family in Wazirabad. They identified the body on January 9 and filed an FIR for murder at Tronica City police station on January 10,” Siddharth Gautam, assistant commissioner of police (ACP - Loni circle), told HT.
The family told police that Sofiyan left the house in the afternoon of January 6 but did not return. Police then scanned the CCTV footage near his house in Wazirabad and found that he had left on a bike with Baisoya at around 1:30 pm.
Baisoya told police that he lured the Sofiyan to Loni on the pretext of carrying out a robbery.
On the evening of January 6, when they reached the jungle area near Jain Colony in Tronica City, Sandeep and Divyanshu allegedly shot Sofiyan in chest and all three fled.
“Sandeep was annoyed with the deceased as he had not returned the ₹15,000 loaned earlier to him after repeated reminders,” the ACP said
The police said that, after the three were arrested late Monday night, Sandeep and Divyanshu were taken to the scene of the incident to recover the illegal guns and cartridges used in the crime.
However, they used the same weapons to open fire on the police and were shot in their legs during an exchange of fire, officials said.
