Crime Capital: 4 shootings, 5 murders over 15 hours in Delhi

The five murders come in the wake of a spate of recent killings involving guns in New Delhi, including a gang war in west Delhi’s Dwarka Mor on May 19 where traffic was stopped as three men pumped bullets into their target.

A 17-year-old boy, a man out on bail and a former call centre employee who lost both his parents in the last eight months were among five people who were shot dead in four separate attacks that took place within a 15-hour period in the Capital on Friday, the police said.

Police officers investigate the spot of a shootout in a car where two persons were killed, at Mandoli Chowk, Nandnagri in New Delhi, India on Friday, June 14, 2019. (HT photo)

Nearly 20 bullets were fired in these incidents, the last of which was a double murder carried out at a busy traffic junction near the Nand Nagri police station in north-east Delhi on Friday morning.

As of late Friday night, Delhi Police said one minor and one man were held for their involvement in the four shooting cases.

The five murders prompted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to tweet that it was an “extremely serious situation”.

He appealed to the Union home minister and the Lieutenant Governor to “urgently look into the law and order situation of the national Capital”.

The Delhi Police responded to Kejriwal’s tweet saying all the murders mentioned involved personal enmity. “The accused were previously known to their victims and are already arrested in some cases. Overall, heinous crime in 2019 is down by 10.5%. Crime by use of fire arms is down by 5.65%,” the official Delhi Police accounted tweeted.

At 10:30pm on Thursday in west Delhi’s Vikaspuri, a 35-year-old man, Amit Kochar, was taken by three unidentified men into his car and shot dead outside his house. The same night, two other people were gunned down within a kilometre of each other in outer Delhi’s Bhalaswa Dairy over a 90-minute period. The first was death was around 9.30pm of a 42-year-old property dealer.

Around 90 minutes later, a 17-year-old boy was shot in his head.