Taimoor Ngr suspect had killed cabbie: Cops

NEW DELHI: One of the three men arrested for the murder of Taimoor Nagar resident Rupesh Besoya on September 30 for protesting against the sale of drugs in the area was also involved in the murder of an Ola cab driver in south Delhi’s Kotla Mubarakpur last month, police said on Friday.

Delhi police said three men were involved in the murder of the cab driver Umesh Sharma, 40, on September 9. While two of the accused have been arrested, the third suspect continues to remain on the run.

Umesh Sharma had been shot dead at point blank range in the early hours of September 9 after an argument over parking on a narrow street in Kotla Mubarakpur.

Vijay Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (south), said that the pistol used in both the murders has been found to be the same and has been recovered. The officer claimed that the car in which the trio fled after murdering Umesh had also been recovered from Ghazipur.

“The Honda City used in the cab driver’s murder had been stolen by the killers from south Delhi’s Jungpura two weeks before the incident. The same car had been stolen once before in 2015 from East of Kailash. It had later been recovered from Noida,” said the DCP.

The officer identified the cab driver’s killer as 25-year-old Akash Singh, who he claimed was ‘trigger-happy ’ with over half-a-dozen other cases registered against him. “After every crime, Akash gave police the slip by hiding in a hotel. He never carried a mobile phone,” said the DCP.

In the early hours of September 9, Akash and his friends were on a joyride in south Delhi in the stolen Honda City when they got into a confrontation with the cab driver. Akash then allegedly got off his car and shot the driver from a close range, before speeding away. The three men then dumped the car in Ghazipur and checked themselves in a hotel. They realised that the cab driver had died only after news channels flashed the news of the murder.

They later killed Rupesh Basoya in Taimoor Nagar. Akash and his friends were arrested for Basoya’s murder after CCTV footage of their attempted robbery at an eatery in Mehrauli surfaced.