‘Sonu Dariyapur will now terrorise inmates in jail’
Rajrani, whose husband Monu was murdered by Delhi’s most wanted gangster Sonu Dariyapur, says his arrest makes no difference to her. “Neither I, nor Monu were scared of him when he would roam freely. I am not scared of him now that he is in jail. Sonu also knows this very well,” says a stern-sounding Rajrani.
Her marriage reportedly drew a wedge between the two friends and gangsters Sonu and Monu. Sonu is Rajrani’s cousin and had allegedly had gunned down Monu inside his car in outer Delhi’s Paschim Vihar in May.
Sonu was arrested by the special cell on Thursday from Narela after being on the run for eight years. “He is not someone to sit silent. Till now he terrorised people from outside, now he will also bully and trouble the weak prisoners,” Rajrani told HT over phone. “He is an extremely violent man. I remember him shooting a gun more carelessly than we burst crackers. He has little regard for life. His ego is everything,” she said.
Monu and Sonu, residents of Dariyapur village in outer Delhi, were close friends. Monu was into finance and real estate business. Sonu too ran his own business, and the two friends faced a host of criminal charges.
In 2006, Monu took a liking to Sonu’s cousin Rajrani. Their friendship was opposed by Rajrani’s family, but the couple went ahead and tied the knot. A few weeks after the wedding, an argument between the two friends turned ugly when Monu allegedly teased Sonu that he was now his ‘saala’ (brother-in-law). Sonu took an offence to the remark and started looking for an opportunity to kill the couple.
A few months later, as Monu and Rajrani were driving in a car in west Delhi, Sonu and his men allegedly targeted them near the Punjabi Bagh Flyover. The
MONU’S WIFE CLAIMED THAT SONU IS AN ‘EXTREMELY VIOLENT’ MAN AND HAS LITTLE REGARD FOR LIFE
assailants fired multiple shots at the couple before fleeing. Monu was hit four times and his wife twice, but both survived. In May this year, a decade since he first attacked them, Sonu allegedly targeted Monu again and succeeded in killing him.
Having lost her husband, Rajrani regrets that a “non-issue” left so many of her loved ones dead. “Neither my parents, nor Monu’s were against our marriage,” she claimed, adding that only Sonu and his parents had problems with the relationship. “Monu and I don’t even belong to the same village. Our marriage was totally within the acceptable social norms,” she claimed.
The problem apparently began when an invitation for the wedding was sent to Sonu and his family. Sonu is the son of Rajrani’s father’s sister. “I still regret why we informed Sonu about my wedding. He was a criminal and needn’t have even known about my wedding. But an invite was sent to him out of courtesy. He responded to the courtesy by destroying my family,” she said.
She said the two families tried to keep Sonu away from stopping the marriage, but his ego, that his best friend was marrying his sister, got the better of him. “It was two consenting adults marrying. He thinks he did it for his honour. Where is the honour now?” she asks.