59-yr-old woman shot dead inside car in Patparganj
NEW DELHI: A 59-year-old woman who worked as an assistant human resources manager at an insurance company was shot dead in her car on Saturday morning by two unidentified men riding a bike in east Delhi’s Patparganj.
The woman, Usha Rani Gupta, was on the driver’s seat and waiting for her husband, who had gone to a nearby Shani temple, when the assailants broke the glass window and shot her. The bullet hit her head near the right ear and she died on the driver’s seat, the police said.
Nothing was missing from the car. The woman’s jewellery and other belongings were intact, the police said.
According to the police, a CCTV camera installed at the temple captured the two suspects riding a motorcycle and fleeing after the crime. Because the video footage was not of the best quality, the images of the suspects or the bike they were riding were not very clear.
The woman may have tried to drive away. She drove for at least 20 feet before being intercepted and shot, the police said.
The police were clueless about the motive behind the murder and the identity of the killers as of late evening on Saturday. They suspect that the woman may have been killed during a robbery bid as one of the windows of the car was found to be broken. Police have not ruled out personal or professional enmity angles. It could be a case of mistaken identity as well, the police said.
Gupta’s family members ruled out the personal enmity angle
and said that she was a soft-spoken woman who always helped others. They said Gupta had never told them about any threat to her life or any personal or jobrelated dispute. The family was not involved in any property or other disputes, they said.
Deputy commissioner of police (east) Jasmeet Singh said that a case of murder and under the Arms Act has been registered at the Madhu Vihar police station.
“Teams have been formed and the case is being probed from personal enmity and robbery bid as well,” said Singh, adding the suspects had been following the car since the couple left home. Police statistics show that murder cases in Delhi have increased almost 9% so far this year until August 31 from the corresponding period last year. A total of 343 murder cases were registered against last year’s 315 until August 31.
Gupta’s brother, Sanjay Goel, said that she was taking her 64-year-old husband, Kailash Chand Gupta, to a private hospital in Vaishali for dialysis from their home in Radhe Shyam Extension near Jagatpuri in East Delhi. The couple left home around 6am and Gupta was driving the car. The couple reached the Shani temple and parked the car some 200 metres away from Max Hospital in Patparganj, on the road heading towards the Delhi-meerut expressway.
“My brother-in-law went to the temple while my sister stayed back in the car. Around 10-15 minutes later, he came back and found her bleeding inside the car. He raised an alarm and informed me. By the time I reached, police had already arrived,” said Goel, a doctor by profession.
Gupta was employed as assistant manager in the HR department of the New India Insurance Company Limited. Her husband retired from Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited. He has been suffering from a kidney ailment and has been on dialysis for the past seven-eight years. The couple has two children.