45-year-old man shot dead by friend over money dispute

New Delhi: A 50-year-old man was arrested for allegedly killing his friend over money in southwest Delhi's Palam Gaon area, police said on Saturday.

The accused has been identified as Kamal Sharma, a resident of Palam Gaon, they said.

The victim, Prakash Aggarwal (45), a resident of Hauz Qazi, ran a sanitaryware shop in Chawdi Bazaar.

His wife told police that she had last spoken to Aggarwal at 6.30 pm on Thursday and he had told her that he was with Sharma in Palam village, a senior police officer said. After that, his phone got switched off and she could not contact him.

On Friday, Aggarwal's body was found with gunshot wounds at an isolated spot near Pochanpur village, following which a case was registered at Dwarka Sector-23 police station, the officer said. On the same day, police received information that Sharma was involved in Aggarwal's murder.

A trap was laid and he was nabbed on Friday near Dwarka Sector-11-12 with two pistols in his possession, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Shibesh Singh said. Sharma confessed to killing Aggarwal and dumping his body near Pochanpur, they said. During interrogation, he revealed that he is in property business and had recently opened a Mother Dairy booth. He has a past criminal record and was once arrested for assault, police said.

Sharma and Aggarwal had known each other since 2017. Aggarwal had helped Sharma secure a bank loan against property. Sharma had been returning the money regularly to the bank through Aggarwal, police said.

However, instead of depositing the money in bank, Aggarwal siphoned it off. They had a showdown when the bank officials visited Sharma and told him that no money had been deposited in the last 12 months, police said. Sharma called Aggarwal to his Mother Dairy booth in Palam village and shot him twice in his chest, police said.