Sacked trainer held for shooting at gym owner

Nupur Prasad, deputy commissioner of police (north), identified the arrested trainer as 35-year-old Lalit Kumar and said he attacked the gym owner, Rahul Gupta, as a revenge for being terminated from service earlier this month.

A day after the owner of a gymnasium was shot and injured in north Delhi’s Civil Lines, the police have arrested a former trainer of the same gym, and his juvenile friend, for the attack. Nupur Prasad, deputy commissioner of police (north), identified the arrested trainer as 35-year-old Lalit Kumar and said he attacked the gym owner, Rahul Gupta, as a revenge for being terminated from service earlier this month.

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“Kumar is a diploma holder and a certified gym-trainer. For the past five years, he had been working as a trainer at a gym owned by Gupta. But in recent weeks, Gupta had been making advances towards a woman trainer at the same gym,” Prasad said.

Though Kumar and the woman trainer were friends, Gupta objected to his behaviour, she said. “When Gupta noticed Kumar repeating his behaviour, he sacked him from work earlier this month,” Prasad added.

Kumar allegedly planned to kill Gupta in revenge. “He arranged a pistol and roped in his 16-year-old friend. At 8am on Thursday, the two rode a scooter to the gym and fired at Gupta, just as he was entering its premises,” the officer said.

Gupta was rushed to a private hospital and is likely to survive.

The police, however, spoke to his colleagues, family and friends to know about the issue with Kumar. “We also checked footage from more than 100 CCTV cameras before zeroing in on Kumar,” the DCP said.