Janakpuri murder: Car, pistol recovered

NEWDELHI: For three days, 21-yearold used car dealer Sahil Chopra and his two associates — who were nabbed for allegedly killing Sahil’s wife — supposedly hoodwinked Delhi Police and made them carry out search operations across Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for the car and gun used in the crime.

On Friday, the suspects finally confessed to having hidden the car and the pistol used in the crime in Delhi itself.

Police on Friday said they had recovered the sedan, which was parked near Pankha Road, which is not too far from the Janakpuri police station where the kidnapping, murder, and dowry harassment case was registered. The pistol was recovered from the glove box of the car’s dashboard, the police said.

The decomposed body of 20-year-old Nancy Sharma was recovered from some roadside bushes near Panipat refinery in Haryana on Wednesday, sixteen days after she had gone missing from her in-laws home in Janakpuri. The body was recovered after her husband, Sahil Chopra, and his two employees – Shubham and Badal – were arrested and they led the police to the spot where they had shot Nancy and hidden her body on November 11.

Even as the police arrested the suspects, they were not able to recover the weapon and the car in which the suspects and Nancy had gone on a road trip on the night of November 11. The arrested men allegedly mislead investigators, as they knew that the case against them would be weaker if the gun and the car, which are crucial pieces of evidence, were not recovered, said an investigator.

Sahil told the police that the pistol belonged to his dead wife and he threw it in the bushes after shooting her, following an altercation.

The police scanned the area where the body was dumped but the pistol could not be found. They grilled Sahil again and he changed his statement and said he had thrown the pistol in a drain while returning to Delhi.

“We searched a few drains on the route he took, but the weapon could not be recovered. Similarly, the suspects claimed that they had abandoned the car in Uttar Pradesh’ Muzaffarnagar.

But we didn’t find the vehicle there,” the investigator said.

The police said that the suspects were interrogated again and confronted with each other’s revelations, which were different. They broke down and disclosed that the car was parked near Pankha Road in Janakpuri and the pistol was kept in its glove compartment.

“It was Shubham who was given the task to get rid of the pistol and the car,” the officer added.

The three were arrested after Nancy’s father filed a missing persons complaint on November 23, suspecting that something bad had happened to her, and alleged that she was being tortured by her husband for dowry.

The couple had a love marriage in March, against the wishes of their families.