Lucknow: Four persons – two of them women – were arrested for allegedly murdering a 40-year-old man and dumping his body in the Ganga canal on January 11.
Umesh Chaudhary, a resident of Madhuban Bapudham, had left home on January 11 to meet a property dealer who had taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh from him. He never returned home.
“My father had given Rs 25 lakh to Neeraj Kaushik. He returned Rs 10 lakh and promised to give back the remaining amount in January,” said Umesh’s son Ankur, a constable in Delhi Police.
An FIR against Neeraj and his associates was registered on January 15 under Section 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) of the IPC.
“The case was registered after I gave police CCTV footage, which showed my father going to Neeraj’s house on his bicycle. Another footage showed Neeraj coming out of his house in a car around 10pm on January 11. I initiated a probe on my own and learnt that Neeraj had gone to the Ganga canal in Masuri. I wondered why Neeraj needed to go to the Ganga canal at night,” Ankur said.
ACP Abhishek Srivastava said teams were formed to trace Umesh after the FIR was registered.
“When we questioned Neeraj, his answers were inconsistent. On Saturday, we quizzed him for the second time, when he confessed to his crime. He admitted to having strangled Umesh with a rope after an argument with him over the money that he owed him. Neeraj’s wife and sister-in-law were in the room when the murder took place. They decided to dump the body in the canal,” he added.
Apart from Neeraj, his wife Nandini, sister-in-law Gargi and friend Rajendra Sharma were arrested.
“Sharma had gone with Neeraj to dump the body in the canal. He had also hidden Umesh’s cycle,” Srivastava said.
Police have now added the murder charge in the FIR and sent the accused in judicial custody.
Ankur, however, accused the local police of being slack in their probe. “We had to move from pillar to post to get them to register this case. Even after we submitted CCTV footage, the cops were reluctant in examining them,” he said.
