Shobhit's murder case: One detained, but no headway

Delhi Police are yet to formally arrest the prime suspect, a local criminal who was detained on Friday night from Kusumpur Pahadi in connection with the murder of IT student Shobhit Modi. Sources say, the detained person had confessed to the crime but has been changing his statements. In the absence of any evidence, the police are finding it difficult to put him behind the bars.

Delhi Police are yet to formally arrest the prime suspect, a local criminal who was detained on Friday night from Kusumpur Pahadi in connection with the murder of IT student Shobhit Modi. Sources say, the detained person had confessed to the crime but has been changing his statements. In the absence of any evidence, the police are finding it difficult to put him behind the bars.

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Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta denied any breakthrough in the case, but senior police officers said the detained person is the main suspect. “We have questioned over 100 local criminals. The detained person was one of them and is the prime suspect as he had left for Kanpur a day after Shobhit was murdered,” said a senior police officer requesting anonymity.

A local goon, Deepak Malik, was picked up for questioning on Friday night. A senior police officer said Malik was understood to have just been released from prison in a robbery case. “He is a resident of Kusumpur Pahadi area in Vasant Kunj’s ‘D’ block and had been missing since Shobhit’s murder. We detained him as soon as he turned up,” the officer added. However, despite questioning him for over 48 hours, police have failed to gather any evidence against him.

“Malik, a drug addict, is changing his statements frequently. Without any evidence we can’t arrest him,” the officer further said. Meanwhile, Shobhit’s father has written to the Delhi Police commissioner asking him to speed up the probe into the case. Shobhit, 20, was stabbed to death in Vasant Kunj on May 5 night.

Shobhit was found with multiple stab wounds by a security guard of the Vasant Kunj colony while he on his way home from a nearby mall where he had gone to meet friends. He was rushed to a hospital by his father Suraj Modi but was declared dead.