51-year-old Uber cabbie shot dead by juvenile duo

A 51-year-old Uber cab driver was allegedly shot by two juveniles following an altercation between them in West Delhi’s Mundka area on Wednesday afternoon. During interrogation, one of the juveniles alleged that his father works as a security guard for the grandson of the Nizam of Hyderabad for 20-25 days in a month.

According to the police, the duo had boarded the cab from their house in South-West Delhi’s Najafgarh area on Wednesday. En route to Hiran Kudna in West Delhi, the two juveniles struck a conversation with the driver, Kuldeep Thakur. It was in the middle of the conversation that the duo asked Thakur the name of his native place.

“When Thakur told them he belonged to Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, they started laughing at him. In return, he replied that Mundka sounds no better. Enraged over this, one of the youngsters whipped out his pistol and shot at the driver’s head twice,” said a senior investigating official.

After killing him, they dumped his body near a paddy field in Mundka and drove off with the Swift Dzire car to Najafgarh. A passerby saw the abandoned car without number plates and with bloodstains, near a soft drink bottling plant on Thursday morning around 10 am, after which he called the PCR. Police found one of the number plates beneath the seat of the cab, said a senior investigating official.

“We got in touch with both Ola and Uber and got to know the details of the driver. Ola helped in identifying the victim while Uber helped in tracking down the juveniles who had hired the cab, police said.

Apprehended on Friday, the juvenile duo confessed that they had dumped the body of Thakur in an agricultural field since the road was deserted.“Kuldeep Thakur was driving for Ola Cabs until March 11, but the taxi had been booked through the Uber app when the incident took place on Wednesday,” said Depender Pathak, an official.