Two days short of his 46th birthday, a 45-year-old property dealer was shot dead while his 15-year-old son suffered minor injury on his leg when four unidentified men in a white Swift Dzire car came and started firing indiscriminately near a tea shop from where the duo was passing by at the busy Bhajanpura Chowk in North-east Delhi on Tuesday morning.
According to the police, the deceased has been identified as Kailash Gupta while the injured has been identified as his son Rajan. Two other persons identified as Ram Lakhan, an auto driver and Banwari, a regular at the tea shop too suffered bullet injuries in the incident. Moreover, while fleeing after firing at Gupta, the accused hit a passer-by, Javed , 20 metres away from the tea shop.
Although police claim to have identified the four culprits, they are withholding names so that the investigation does not get hampered. According to eyewitnesses, mostly auto-drivers, they said that they rushed all the injured to Guru Tegh Bahadur hospital in their autos where Kailash was declared brought dead.
According to the police, the incident took place at around 7.30 am near Narayana Tea shop adjacent to Balaji sweets at the Bhajanpura chowk where Kailash Gupta along with his son Rajan were passing by in a motorcycle when they were allegedly shot by four men who came from Karawal Nagar side in a white Swift Dzire car.
Talking to Millennium Post, Karan Gupta, son of Kailash, said: “My father and my brother were going out to drink juice. They called me to join them but I refused. At 9 am, I got a call that my father has been shot and my brother too is hurt.”
Running from pillar to post, right from filling forms to taking his father’s body from the mortuary to attending to his injured brother Rajan, admitted in the emergency ward, Karan talked about how they were planning a grand celebration for his father’s birthday.
“Last year, Sunil Pahalwan’s men killed my elder brother Vishal. This time round, they came to kill my father,” said Karan.
Senior police officers privy to the investigation told Millennium Post that they have identified the white Swift Dzire car which has been allegedly being purchased from a South Delhi showroom.
They said that they identified the car number from the CCTV footage recovered from the nearby sweets shop. They also added that the involvement of Sunil Pahalwan, a notorious criminal active in Bhajanpura is being considered.
A case under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and relevant sections of the Arms Act has been registered at the Gokalpuri police station.
Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses said that despite a police picket being present near the tea stall, there was no presence of any cop when the incident took place. They also alleged that the cops arrived at the scene quite late and that rushing the victims to hospital were done by them. It is worth mentioning that there are three police stations nearby, however, at the time of the incident, according to the eye witnesses, there was no presence of any police.
Meanwhile, the cops have detained some people who they believe have a role in the murder and also said that arrests are likely to happen very soon.