New Delhi:
A young engineer was strangled allegedly by this three friends in west Delhi for getting hold of the money the victim's father got in a land deal, police said today.
Johnny Gupta, 23, who works as a site engineer with a private company, was murdered on April 3 night, hours after his close friend 25-year-old Anoop allegedly took him to a warehouse in Kamruddin Nagar in west Delhi's Nihal Vihar, they said.
Anoop, a marketing executive, and his friends Anil, 26, a tempo driver, and Avinash, 36, the warehouse owner, were arrested, RS Krishnaiah, Joint Commissioner of Police, said. According to police, the murder took place at around 9 pm on April 3 and the family received a ransom call of a crore later. Police claimed they received the information about the victim being missing around 11:30 pm that night. "The deceased's father had received some money on a land deal. Anoop, the mastermind, and his friends wanted to get hold of that money and they executed the murder," Krishnaiah claimed.
Giving the sequence of events, he said, Johnny, who holds a diploma in civil engineering was last seen at Keshavpuram on April 3, 6:30 pm with one of his friend Ashok.
Checking of Johnny's call records showed that after that he had received a call from Anoop and that the ransom call was made from the deceased's phone.
Anoop was questioned the next day but he "initially tried to mislead" investigators but later broke down and confessed to the crime, Krishnaiah said.
"Anoop had asked Johnny to come near Punjabi Bagh flyover on the fateful day. Johnny was made to park his motorcycle at Peeragarhi metro station from where both went to the warehouse owned by Avinash on Anoop's motorcycle," he said.