Gunmen shoot 45-yr-old man 25 times in Delhi’s Narela, police suspect personal enmity

The driver of the car managed to escape unhurt. Police said they suspected the murder to be a fallout of personal enmity and are trying to identify the killers.

In an apparent gangwar, a 45-year-old man involved in more than 13 cases of murder, robbery, extortion, assault, as well as under the Arms Act, was gunned down by a group of armed assailants in his car in outer Delhi’s Narela Industrial Area on Sunday morning. Police said the assailants rained over 30 bullets on the man’s car, of which 20-25 bullets hit him.

The bullet-riddled SUV in which the victim and his driver were travelling (HT Photo)

The driver of the car managed to escape unhurt. Police said they suspected the murder to be a fallout of personal enmity and are trying to identify the killers.

According to the police, the incident took place at Lampur Road in Narela around 10am, when the victim Virender Mann, a resident of Narela, was on his way to visit a relative.

“Residents and witnesses claimed his chauffeur was driving a white SUV and Mann was sitting in the front. As soon as they reached Lampur Road, around three or four men in another car intercepted Mann’s vehicle. Armed occupants got down from the other car and fired at Mann’s car when it stopped,” said a police officer who asked not to be named.

They said Mann’s driver managed to escape amid firing and was unhurt. The police have detained the driver for questioning and his role in the killing has not been ruled out so far, senior officers said.

“People in the vicinity of the incident said the assailants fired at least 30 rounds. Mann has more than 20 wounds on his body, and all of these are possibly bullet wounds. Mann was taken to Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. The autopsy is still to reveal the exact number of bullets that hit him,” the officer said.

Deputy commissioner of police (outer north) Gaurav Sharma said, prima facie, it looks like he was eliminated as a result of a personal enmity. “We have not ruled out any possibility yet, and all the angles are being probed. The man had 13 criminal cases against him and was a known criminal. He had a murder case, three attempts to murder cases, two robbery case and other cases of extortion, and assault registered against him, as well as cases under the Arms Act. He was out on bail,” he said.

The officer said multiple teams have been formed to nab the suspects and CCTV camera footage from the spot and nearby areas are being examined to identify the killers, or trace the car in which the criminals had arrived.

Gangs associated with Sandeep Mental and Jitender Gogi have surfaced in connection with the killing. However, Sharma said they are yet to ascertain if any gangs are behind the murder. “Mann’s association with any criminal gang has not come to our notice so far,” the DCP said.

A poster of Mann with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s picture on it, wishing local residents of Narela on the occasion of Independence Day and Janmashtami, was also circulated on social media after his death. HT could not verify the veracity of the poster.

Mann had also contested the 2013 Delhi legislative assembly elections from Narela on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket, losing to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Neel Daman Khatri.

But the DCP said that Mann had no affiliation with any political party. “We have been told he had volunteered and got the posters printed,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal said he was not aware of Mann. “I am not aware of this. I would not like to comment,” said Kejriwal on the sidelines of a press conference on Sunday.

“We have no clue, so we would not like to comment on this,” said Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.