Class 11 student shot in Ghaziabad, assailants try to burn body

The body of the victim - Devendra Gaur, the son of a retired assistant commandant of the Railway Protection Force - was recovered from a jungle at Mubarakpur village near NH-24 on late Thursday night.

Unidentified assailants shot dead a 17-year-old class 11 student and tried to burn his body in a jungle in Ghaziabad on Thursday night.

The body of the victim - Devendra Gaur, the son of a retired assistant commandant of the Railway Protection Force - was recovered from a jungle at Mubarakpur village near NH-24 on late Thursday night.

The assailants were trying to burn the victim’s body after dousing it with petrol when some villagers noticed.

Gaur’s family said he had picked up his sister’s two-wheeler and left home to attend his coaching class near his Vijay Nagar residence. The boy did not return and his father got a call from the police around 8.10pm on Thursday about an accident.

“After the initial call, I got another call from the police that the boy had been murdered. I rushed to the spot with my other son and found the bullet-ridden dead body. It smelt of petrol. His two mobile phones were missing,” his father Nath Ram Gaur told HT.

“Before leaving for his class, he had told his mother that he would be late,” he added.

Though the police were clueless about the motive, officials said the murder seemed to be planned as the victim knew his murderers and had arrived at the location on his two-wheeler.

“It seems that the murder was planned as the assailants had brought a bottle filled with petrol. The boy sustained two bullet injuries on his neck and head. He did not attend his coaching on Thursday,” circle officer RK Pandey told HT. The police are trying to track the call details from Gaur’s mobile number.

“His parents denied any rivalry. We have come to know that the victim’s movements were restricted by his parents. Several teams are probing the case from different angles. We have registered a case of murder against unidentified assailants,” Pandey added.