Ghaziabad:
A 26-year-old former nightclub bouncer and his girlfriend were on Tuesday arrested for allegedly murdering an elderly man inside a park in Indirapuram here.
Rahul Kumar, a bouncer at Black discotheque in Pacific Mall and his girlfriend Himani Mehra alias Julie, 20, a hotel management graduate, were arrested for murdering retired LIC employee Shyam Nandan, 65, in the Swarna Jayanti Park in Indirapuram, police said.
Nandan had gone to the park along with his four-year-old grandson on Aug 11 to take a stroll after dinner where he was stabbed to death.
According to Senior Superintendent of Police Raghubir Lal, Himani had met the deceased at a Tour & Travels firm in Laxmi Nagar, where she worked as an executive.
"She was employed with the travel firm for last nearly one and half years. Around a year back, she came in contact with Shyam Nandan, who visited the office often to get his bookings done," he said.
"The two came close to each other and started contacting each other on regular basis. Few months back, Himani was diagnosed with a stone in kidney and needed money for operation. As she did not have the money, she took Rs 50,000 from Shyam Nandan with the promise of returning it back, soon," SSP Lal said.
"However, Himani did not return the amount for which he started insisting frequently. He also made sexual advances towards her," he said.
"He would call me to the park to meet him and often asked for sexual favours. He was a womanizer. Many times, he introduced me to several other young girls with whom he was friendly and perhaps also going around with them," said Himani.
"I was cautious and did not meet him alone in a room or at a secluded place except conceding to his demands of meeting in parks," she added.
"For the past few days, he was pressurizing me to return his money and was getting aggressive," Himani said.
Himani lived with her boyfriend Rahul in a rented room in Anand Vihar. Rahul was a bouncer but had quit his job a couple of months ago, the police said.
Fed up of Shyam Nandan's calls for money, the couple hatched a plan to eliminate him. On Aug 11, Ms Himani called him to the Swarna Jayanti Park in the evening. When Nandan came with his grandson, she tried to beg for more time to return the money to which he reportedly did not agree.
According to Himani, Nandan asked her to return the amount or "be his wife for five years". At this point Rahul attacked him from behind with a vegetable knife. Nandan was stabbed multiple times and died on the spot.
After the incident Himani left the park from a side gate, while Rahul came to the main gate to get his bike. When the parking contractor Ajay asked him for the parking slip, Rahul hit his head with a helmet and fled leaving his bike.
Soon after the murder, both Rahul and Himani had fled to Haridwar, the SSP said.