Patparganj murder: Cops probe if it was robbery gone wrong or personal enmity
NEW DELHI: The murder of a 59-year-old assistant human resources manager of an insurance company on a busy street in Patparganj has left police grappling for clues.
Investigators are now scrambling to figure out if the suspects involved in Saturday morning’s brazen killing are the same ones who shot dead an electronic showroom owner in northeast Delhi’s Jyoti Nagar five days ago.
So far, the police have found several similarities in the modus operandi. In both the cases, the suspects were riding a motorcycle and fired just one bullet. CCTV camera footage showed that suspects in both the cases followed the victims and circumstantial evidence pointed out tthat the killers tried to make their act look like a robbery bid gone wrong, the police said.
“In the showroom owner’s murder, the suspects left his bag containing ₹2 lakh. In Saturday’s case, the suspects made no attempt to snatch the woman’s jewellery, mobile phone or her bag containing cash,” said a police officer.
Saturday’s victim, Usha Rani Gupta, 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. Usha Rani was driving the car. The couple reached Shani temple and parked their car around 200 metres away from Max hospital, Patparganj, on the road going towards Delhi-meerut Expressway, the police said.
According to the officer, Usha Rani stayed in back in the car when her husband went to the temple. The footage of one of the two CCTV cameras of the temple shows two men stopping their motorcycle near the car.
“The video footage is not very clear. But what we can still figure out is that one of the suspects may have shown a pistol to Usha Rani and asked her to roll the window down. They later broke the window of the car, possibly upon Gupta’s refusal and her locking the door. The footage shows Usha Rani trying to drive away too. But the car stops after about 20 feet. The suspects intercept the car and shoot once before fleeing. It could be a robbery bid or she was killed over personal enmity,” the officer added.
Deputy commissioner of police (east) Jasmeet Singh said that the investigating team is looking into Usha Rani’s personal, professional as well as family backgrounds.
“We are also probing if any of her clients or colleagues had a grudge against her,” he said.
Sangeeta Devi, a worker at the Shani temple, said she was busy cleaning the temple’s floor when she heard a loud thud. “Initially, I thought the sound was that of a bursting tyre. Soon, there was a commotion outside and I heard people saying that two men had shot a woman dead. I went there, found her bleeding and unconscious on the seat,” said Devi.
‘PUBLIC ALERTNESS COULD HAVE SAVED HER’
Usha Rani’s family members alleged that many people were present at the crime spot but they only acted as spectators and made no efforts to rush her to a hospital, which was barely 200 metres away from the spot. They alleged that people watched her bleeding in the car and paid no heed to her husband’s request to take her to a hospital.
“I rushed to the scene the moment my brother-in-law informed me. I heard him over the cellphone pleading with onlookers to rush my sister to a hospital. I also requested a few of them over the phone but nobody helped. It took me around 15 minutes to reach there. By the time I took my sister to the hospital, 20 precious minutes had been wasted. Doctors declared her brought dead,” said Usha Rani’s brother, Sanjay Goel, a doctor.