Cop stabbed to death

It proved fatal. Kumar,38,was declared dead on arrival at GTB Hospital in East Delhi’s Dilshad Garden.

The assailant is absconding,the police said.

The incident occurred in Bhajanpura,Northeast Delhi,around 4 pm on Saturday when Constable Kumar who was with the Delhi Police for the past 16 years,was on his beat,clearing illegally parked vehicles on the main road to decongest it.

The police said Kumar lived in Gokulpuri — less than three kilometres from the spot where he was killed.

According to eyewitnesses,Kumar was trying to move six or seven rickshaws from the main road when one of the rickshaw-pullers got into an argument with him. “The policeman pulled out an ice pick,apparently to puncture the rickshaw’s tyres,but the rickshaw-puller snatched it from him,” Vikas Singh,a vendor at the crossing,said.

“He stabbed the constable once and started running.”

Singh and other eyewitnesses said the constable ran after the rickshaw-puller to nab him and as he caught up,the assailant stabbed him twice on the chest.

Outside GTB Hospital in the evening,Kumar’s cousin Puneet said his wife,four children and parents survive the constable. His wife and parents have not been informed yet,Puneet said.

“We are still wondering how to break the news to them,” he said.

“We have not even informed most of his friends or relatives,for we do not want them to crowd the hospital.”

Kumar’s eldest child,Deepak,is 15,and his father is a retired Armyman,Puneet said.