Gurugram cops solve two cold cases, link 3 murders to loan fraud plot

The Gurugram police have cracked two long-forgotten cases — one initially ruled a road accident and another logged as a missing person — uncovering a chilling, brutal conspiracy that ties three murders across five years to a single mastermind: a 42-year-old woman, who allegedly killed off her financiers rather than repay them.

The breakthrough came during the investigation into the November 2024 murder of Rajender Kumar, a 52-year-old businessman from Shikohpur in Sector 79. His family found his Fortuner SUV abandoned a day after he was reported missing, sparking suspicion.

As police traced his last known movements, their investigation led them to Sushma, a construction entrepreneur living in IMT Manesar’s Sector 1. Call records and CCTV footage showed Kumar was in touch with her shortly before he vanished.

“She had called him at her residence, made him unconscious by offering him tea laced with sedatives, and they strangled him with the help of a business partner who we have arrested since then,” said ACP (crime) Varun Kumar Dahiya.

She was detained for questioning and soon confessed — not just to Rajender Kumar’s killing but to two others: Laxmi Devi, a 50-year-old housewife from Dundahera in Gurugram’s Sector-21 who disappeared in January 2020, and Satyavir Singh Malik, a 57-year-old Haryana cooperative department official found dead in 2021, believed at the time to be a road accident victim.

The revelation prompted investigators to reopen the long-closed files, setting off a manhunt for Sushma’s alleged accomplice, 52-year-old property dealer Satyapriya Saini. After months of search, Saini — for whose arrest Haryana police had declared a reward of ₹20,000 — was arrested from Dehradun on Saturday and is now in police custody.

According to the police, all three victims had lent Sushma large sums of money for her money-lending operation, and she diverted the majority of the funds into her construction ventures. But when they began demanding repayment, Sushma allegedly chose murder over settling her debts.

“In all three cases, she used similar tactics — gaining trust, promising returns, then eliminating the lender,” said Sandeep Kumar, public relations officer of the Gurugram police.

Laxmi Devi, the first victim, had reportedly lent Sushma ₹18 lakh in 2019. On January 6, 2020, she went missing after visiting a nearby market. She had a mobile phone and had gone to a market near her residence, but even then, police could not find any clues from tower location or call detail records.

Her son, Naresh Kumar, filed a missing person complaint the next day at Udyog Vihar police station. Despite extensive efforts, including technical analysis of her phone records, Laxmi could not be traced. With no leads, the case was eventually closed.

Sushma later confessed that Laxmi met her in Sector 21 on the day she disappeared. Sushma allegedly gave her sedatives and then handed her over to Saini, who was waiting nearby in a pickup truck. Along with an aide, Satish, Saini drove the semi-conscious woman to Moradabad, around 60 km away, where she was strangled. Her body was dumped in a drain connected to the Ramganga River, a tributary of the Ganga. Gurugram police plan to visit Moradabad to verify whether an unidentified female body was ever recovered in January 2020. They will also take Saini to the site in hopes of retrieving remains for DNA analysis.

A year later, Satyavir Singh Malik, who had lent Sushma ₹20 lakh in 2020, also began pressuring her for repayment. On January 13, 2021, he was last heard from when he called home to say he’d be late. Hours later, a passerby reported what appeared to be a road accident on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway service lane near Panchgaon. Malik was found dead near his i10 car.

At the time, a murder case was briefly registered on a complaint by his son, Amit Singh, but was soon closed. Doctors who conducted the post-mortem concluded that his injuries — blunt force trauma and bruises — were consistent with a vehicular accident, and tyre marks on his body reinforced that theory. With no evidence to suggest otherwise, the case was written off as an accident.

But Saini’s arrest and subsequent confession revealed a different story. Police now say that Malik was lured to a warehouse in Sector 71, where he was plied with alcohol until he was heavily intoxicated. Satish then drove him to a secluded stretch of road near Panchgaon, while Saini followed in a pickup truck. They allegedly placed Malik on the road and ran him over to simulate a hit-and-run.

Rajender Kumar, the most recent victim, was also reportedly a financier of Sushma, having lent her ₹22 lakh in 2023. When he, too, began asking for his money back, Sushma allegedly set her plan in motion. On November 22, 2024, she invited Kumar to her home under the pretext of making a payment. She served him tea laced with sedatives and, once he was unconscious, strangled him with help from her associate Anil Kumar, a transport business owner. They stuffed poisonous pills into his mouth and planted more in his pockets to suggest suicide. Anil then loaded the body into his Hyundai Verna and drove 100 km to dump it near the Haryana-Rajasthan border.

Anil and Sushma were arrested on November 23.

The next day, another accomplice, Seema Kumari of Dundahera, was taken into custody, followed by Satish Kumar, who had helped destroy Kumar’s phone to erase digital evidence. During interrogation, Sushma startled officers by revealing that Laxmi and Malik had also been murdered — crimes for which there had been no suspects and no answers.

“She ran a committee-style money lending operation, offering short-term loans at high interest. To keep it afloat, she needed regular funding. That’s where her victims came in,” said a senior police officer. “But when they wanted their money back, she saw them as liabilities to be removed.”

Police say Sushma invested only a small part of the money in actual lending, with the rest funnelled into her construction business. She relied on a web of manipulation and hired hands like Saini to execute her plans. Saini, who reportedly became acquainted with her while visiting his sister in Dundahera, was used in both earlier murders before disappearing himself.

All four accused — Sushma, Saini, Anil, and Satish — now face murder charges. Investigators say that charge chargesheets have been filed in all three cases over the last month, as the reopened investigations brought long-overdue justice to three families.

“These murders were cold, calculated, and executed with chilling precision,” said Manesar crime branch unit in incharge Lalit Kumar, whose team cracked these cold cases. “They were hidden in plain sight, behind the façade of everyday accidents and disappearances. We were lucky to connect the dots before someone else became her next target.”