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Two friends strangle man after argument over swimming in canal
An autopsy was conducted and after its report was received on May 9, it surfaced that Sahni was strangled following which an FIR against unidentified suspects was registered at Rajendra Park police station
Gurugram: Two friends strangled a man to death and dumped his body in a canal in Chandu-Dhankot after he repeatedly tried to drag one of them into the water while swimming, police said on Tuesday.
Investigators identified the deceased as 45-year-old Indra Sahni, who lived in Dhankot in Sector 102 and hailed from Samastipur in Bihar. Sahni was murdered on May 6 and his body was recovered from the canal on the following day after it was found floating there, police said.
According to the police, Sahdev Chaddha, 26, was arrested from Sector-4 in the city and his friend Dinesh Yadav, 23, was caught from Chhitauni village of Siddharth Nagar in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday. They are on a three-day police remand for detailed interrogation.
An autopsy was conducted and after its report was received on May 9, it surfaced that Sahni was strangled following which an FIR against unidentified suspects was registered under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code at Rajendra Park police station on the complaint of the victim’s younger brother Anil Kumar.
Shiva Archan Sharma, assistant commissioner of police (Gurugram west), said Chaddha and Yadav were taking a bath in the canal when Sahni arrived at the spot on May 6. “Sahni started a conversation with the duo while bathing and the men even consumed alcohol together at the spot,” he said.
“Sahni and Yadav knew swimming but Chaddha didn’t and so he was bathing near the embankment. Soon, Sahni started forcing Yadav to bring Chaddha into the water from the embankment,” Sharma said.
“This happened multiple times and Chaddha kept refusing to venture further in. Finally, an argument broke out and the duo strangled Sahni with a piece of rope and threw his body into the canal,” the ACP said, adding that Yadav later jumped on the floating body due to which it got trapped in the canal bed.
The ACP said that initially it was a blind murder case but they got a clue that the duo had reached a nearby liquor shop in their car to purchase liquor. “Sahni had also accompanied them in the car. We started scanning footage of CCTV cameras at various locations and finally were able to spot the car in which Chaddha and Yadav had reached the shop. From this, we were able to reach Chaddha in Sector 4 and arrest him,” he said.
Investigators said that from WhatsApp conversations of Chaddha, they got to know about Yadav’s hiding place in UP and arrested him too. Police said Yadav has two criminal cases against him including that of an attempt to murder. The car in which they had fled, two mobile phones and a rope were recovered from the possession of the accused.
