Five engineering students were arrested here for allegedly killing their classmate, Apoorva Gupta, the police said on Tuesday.
The students — Pradeep Kashyap, Obaisuddin, Samarjeet Srivastava, Arbaz Khan and Sunny Singh — had allegedly poisoned Gupta at a party last year.
The accused are third-year civil engineering students of the Babu Banarasi Das engineering college in Lucknow, the police said. They were arrested after the victim’s viscera report confirmed that he died of poisoning, the police said.
Gupta, a native of Shahjahanpur district, died the next day, on December 1, after he fell unconscious while writing an examination. He was rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Lucknow were he died after a few hours.
Gupta’s family had alleged he was killed by his classmates due to differences over a female student. Following the allegation, the police had ordered a postmortem. But the exact cause of death could not be ascertained even after the autopsy.
Gupta’s viscera, however, preserved and sent for chemical analysis. The report confirmed that he was poisoned.
“Early investigations revealed that Gupta had a long-standing dispute with his classmates over a girl. In fact, Samarjeet Srivastava had a tiff with Gupta days before his death,” said GS Tripathi, station house officer, Chinhat police station.
{{/usCountry}}“Early investigations revealed that Gupta had a long-standing dispute with his classmates over a girl. In fact, Samarjeet Srivastava had a tiff with Gupta days before his death,” said GS Tripathi, station house officer, Chinhat police station.
{{/usCountry}}The police said all five accused owned up to their involvement in the crime. Four other suspects are absconding and the police have launched a hunt to nab them.