Delhi: DTC conductor, aide held for murdering man, dumping body in field

The body of the man — with multiple injuries on his head and face — was found in a field in Milan Garden near Sonia Vihar on December 26.

Two, including a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus conductor, have been arrested for allegedly beating up a 40-year-old man to death because they suspected the man to be a thief in north-east Delhi’s Sonia Vihar on December 25, police said on Tuesday.

Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) cleaning staff chemically disinfect a bus as a precautionary measure against the spread of coronavirus, at DTC Depot Rajghat in New Delhi. (Raj K Raj/HT PHOTO)

The body of the man — with multiple injuries on his head and face — was found in a field in Milan Garden near Sonia Vihar on December 26. Police identified the two arrested men as Praveen Kumar, 26, working as a DTC conductor, and Manjeet Singh,26, who is into the business of supplying building construction materials. The third suspect, Nitin, is still absconding, deputy commissioner of police (north-east) Ved Prakash Surya said.

DCP Surya said that a murder case was registered after the body of an unidentified man with visible injuries was found in a field at Milan Garden. Since the locals could not identify the deceased, his body was preserved in the mortuary of Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital.

Despite all efforts — that included uploading the man’s photographs and physical descriptions on Zonal Integrated Police Network (ZIPnet) and pasting “hue and cry” notices at various places in the city — the man’s identity could not be established, the police said.

As efforts yielded no results, the investigating teams re-inspected the crime scene and scanned CCTVs installed in its vicinity. The footage of one CCTV camera showed a Scorpio car parked some distance away from the spot where the man’s body was found. The occupants of the vehicle were found indulged in some suspicious activities inside, said the DCP.

“We focused our probe on the Scorpio and its occupants. After examining 14 such vehicles were finally found that the Scorpio was owned by one Manjeet Singh from Biharipur (near Sonia Vihar) in Delhi. Singh’s questioning gave us the breakthrough in the case,” Surya said.

Singh told police that on the night of December 25, he was consuming alcohol in the Scorpio with his friend Nitin, who owns a dairy farm in Milan Garden. Around 11 pm, the duo saw a man loitering around the dairy farm and suspected him to be a thief. An altercation broke out as the two questioned the man about his presence in the neighbourhood, said the police.

“The duo made the man sit in their vehicle and punched him. Their friend Praveen Kumar also arrived and joined them in thrashing the man. After the man became unconscious, they removed his clothes and dumped him in the field considering him to be dead. They also threw his clothes in an open plot, before fleeing,” said Surya, adding that Singh and Kumar were arrested on Monday.

The dead man’s identity was established as Sunil Verma, a resident of Loni in Ghaziabad, after the police recovered his clothes that contained his identity card. Police said they could not confirm what Verma was doing there at the time of the incident.