Cops: Accused wanted money for gender-change surgery, kin refused
ROHTAK: Police on Sunday revealed that the 20-year-old youth, who was arrested for allegedly killing four members of his family in Rohtak on August 23, had executed the crime as they had refused to give him money for a gender-reassignment surgery.
The accused Abhishek Malik had allegedly shot dead his property dealer father Pradeep Malik, mother Babli Devi and maternal grandmother Roshni Devi at their house in Vijay Nagar in Rohtak, while his 17-year-old sister succumbed to bullet wounds at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences two days later. He was arrested on September 1.
Interacting with mediapersons, Rohtak deputy superintendent of police (DSP, headquarters) Gorakh Pal said the accused had confessed to killing his family members. “His family was opposed to his same-sex relationship. He was planning to flee abroad after getting money from his family. His parents had called his maternal grandmother to convince him against undergoing the gender-change surgery.”
The DSP further said, “The accused had been planning to eliminate his parents for the last 20 days. We have recovered the illegal pistol and mobile phones used during the murders. The accused claimed that the pistol was brought by his father from his friend, which is illegal. We have also recovered some jewellery that he had stolen after killing his family members. His plan was to make it look like a robbery,” the DSP added.
The DSP said the accused first shot at his sister, then maternal grandmother, mother and father. “After the crime, Malik threw the pistol into a canal and then went to a hotel near Delhi bypass to meet his friend. They drove on the Delhi road before stopping for lunch but he did not eat anything. After dropping his friend, Malik called his maternal uncle, saying that his parents were not picking up his calls and he was worried for them. Then he went home, called his neighbours and rushed his sister to PGIMS, where she died two days later,” said the cop.
The accused Malik had done a cabin-crew course from Delhi, where he came in contact with his male friend. He later enrolled in a B.Com course through distance learning mode.
The DSP headquarters said, “We will produce the accused in court on Monday. So far, we haven’t found anything to point to the involvement of his male friend in the crime. But we aren’t giving the friend a clean chit yet.”
20-yr-old’s social media follower count goes up
The accused’s Instagram follower count has gone up from 700 on September 1 to 3,259, at the time of filing of the report on Sunday. Another account named after him saw the follower-count crossing from 17,000 on September 4 to 18,000 on September 5. In one of the pictures posed on the account, the 20-year-old youth was seen carrying a pistol while his father, who was seen seated next to him, looked on. A senior police official, who is part of the investigation, said they aren’t aware of the rise in follower count.