According to a senior police officer, the incident took place at around 1.35 pm on Saturday afternoon when the prison van was passing through the Hauz Khas area of South Delhi. The three convicts identified as Vishal, Ravinder and Salman thrashed him with bare hands and stomped him with their feet till Manoj fell unconscious. When the other convicts raised an alarm, the policemen stopped the van and took Manoj to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Meanwhile, the three accused persons were arrested on the spot.
Sources said that Manoj was a history sheeter based in Madangir and has been inside the jail since he was 18.
In 2012, he tried to eliminate Vishal and Ravinder by firing at them. However, they managed to escape. In a bid to take revenge, they hatched a plan by involving Salman to eliminate Manoj.
“The prison van was ferrying around 50 general convicts for a hearing to the Saket Court. We never got any intimidation about a threat to Manoj’s life,” said Mukesh Prasad, DIG, Prisons.
A case of murder has been registered at the Hauz Khas police station against the convicts under relevant sections of the IPC.
In a similar incident which took place in August 2015, two inmates of Neetu Dabodia gang were thrashed to death by seven members of the Neeraj Bawana gang minutes after the prison van left the Rohini court complex for Tihar Jail. Bawana and his men pounced on the duo, strangling them with bare hands and stomped on their faces with such viciousness that one of the victims had an eye gauged out.