Builder’s murder: Head constable also arrested,but family not convinced

The police on friday arrested Abdul,the Special Operation Group (SOG) head constable from Bhagpat,who was wanted for the murder of builder Sanjeev Sharma and friend Prakash Chand Arora,from Loni in Ghaziabad. On Thursday,the Ghaziabad police had arrested Sandeep Pehalwan,his uncle Azad Bainsla and SOG constable Praveen in the case. The fifth accused,Chahat,is still on the run.

However,the victim’s family is not convinced by the police theory and claims the actual perpetrators of the crime are still free. Sanjeev was a small-time builder in Rajendra Nagar of Sahibabad and worked with his elder brother Pradeep Sharma. In 1996,his brother Subhash Sharma had been murdered as the result of a business rivalry,said Pradeep. After Upendra,another builder,was murdered in December 2009,his family and partners blamed Sanjeev for the crime. “The brother of Upendra’s business partner,Nawab,gave a statement to the police that Sanjeev had told him that he had killed Upendra. On that basis,he was arrested in January 2010,” said Yudhishtir Sharma,another brother of Sanjeev. Sanjeev was murdered on June 6 when he came out on bail.

The family has now named some people who they think had an enmity with Sanjeev and were responsible for the murder. “One of them is from the same village as Abdul,” said one of the brothers,adding that Azad was a builder from Indirapuram and had no rivalry with Sanjeev.

The Ghaziabad police had claimed that Azad feared that Sanjeev would kill him and hence asked his nephew Sandeep to kill him. Sandeep then committed the crime with help of friend Chahat and SOG personnel Abdul and Praveen,they had said,adding that the SOG personnel had been told that Sanjeev has illegal arms with him.