Delhi accountant robbed, gunned down: 3, including shooter, arrested

The incident took place on Tuesday around 9 pm. The victim was identified as Saroj Pathak, who worked at a utensil-manufacturing factory in Wazirabad Industrial Area.

Police got a breakthrough on March 2 when a Special Staff team, led by Inspector Somveer Singh and SHO (Ashok Vihar) Inspector Kuldeep Singh, received a tip-off that Sahil would be in Ashok Vihar. “On reaching there, they signalled to him to stop. But he fired at the team,” DCP (Northwest) Bhisham Singh said.

The team fired back in retaliation, with a bullet hitting the accused in his right knee, police said. “He was taken to DCB hospital, and we verified his identity,” DCP Singh said.

During questioning, Sahil claimed he planned the robbery with five others after receiving information about the victim from Deepak, a cashier at a nearby factory. “Deepak was in touch with the robbers. They asked him to give them a target, so he told them about Pathak, who carried cash with him daily,” an officer said.

Acting on Deepak’s input, three of the six robbers carried out a recce of the road Pathak took to Shalimar Bagh every day. “They planned to execute the robbery earlier, but they saw some policemen on patrol nearby and dropped the plan,” DCP Singh said.

On the day of the murder, the three accused involved in recce were waiting for Pathak near a T-point. As soon as Pathak drove past on his scooter, they informed the others. “CCTV footage showed three more people arriving on a bike. One of them was Sahil, who shot Pathak,” a police officer said.

Police later arrested Deepak from Bakoli village in Alipur. “Sahil revealed he got the weapon from Allen, who was to get a part of the stolen cash. He was arrested from Bhalswa Dairy,” DCP Singh said.

Of the arrested men, police said only Sahil was involved in the shooting. “Investigation is on to nab the remaining accused,” a police officer said.