Mehram case: Shopkeeper recognised Ganju, had sold two chocolates to him

“The shopkeeper said that Ganju arrived in the evening peak hour and, therefore, he could not recollect other details, like whether Mehram was with him. He’ll be made a witness in the case,” said a police official.

Sources said that the shopkeeper was taken to the police station and secretly shown the accused through a slit in the door. “He said Ganju had visited his shop on a few previous occasions also to buy a soft drink or an eatable,” the official said.

Incidentally, the shopkeeper is a Phase 9 resident and acquainted with Mehram’s family, who also live there.

Mohali SP I M S Bhatti said that the police reconstructed the crime scene and recovered the scooter used by Ganju and the tool used by him for burying the body.

“Ganju had used a small iron tool lying in the garbage dumping site to dig a pit on the night of November 4. We found it near Sector 69 after interrogating the accused,” said DSP Navreet Virk.

The police said that Ganju told them that he was high on bhang while committing the crime. He also said that after kidnapping Mehram, he tried looking for his friends, who used to hang out in the forest area for consuming drugs, hoping to involve them in the planned extortion, but found none and killed the boy.

“The police doubt his claim, as such tactics are sometimes employed by the accused to derail the investigation. He never called his friends or colleagues and did not tell them about the murder later. He simply says that he expected to find them there and then discuss the future course of action with them after telling them about the kidnapping,” said an official.

SSP Bhatti said, “Till now, our probe suggests that Ganju acted alone and did not have any partner. But  the investigation is on.”
Another official said, “We again asked him today why he felt the need to kill the boy. He said something went wrong with him during that brief period and his mind did not function rationally.”

Ganju told the police that he had planned to extort Rs 10 lakh from Mehram’s family by writing a ransom letter in Hindi, and not Punjabi. However, he developed cold feet.