Two more held for ‘hate crime’ murder in Gurugram

Gurugram

Police on Wednesday made two more arrests in connection with the alleged hate-crime murder of a 27-year-old man from a scheduled caste (SC) community for pursuing a relationship with a 17-year-old Gujjar girl. In all, three people, all cousins of the girl, have been arrested in the case, police said.

The suspects, aged 30 and 23 years, are residents of Sanp Ki Nangli village in Sohna, from where they were arrested. On Tuesday, a 22-year-old cousin of the girl was arrested, police said.

Police said that the three men were the main conspirators behind the murder of 27-year-old Kuldeep Yaduvanshi. “The three were taken on police remand for detailed interrogation. Further arrests will be made if they disclose the names of any other family member or associate involved in the planning or murder,” Siddhant Jain, deputy commissioner of police (south), said.

Around 2am on Tuesday, police discovered the body of Yaduvanshi on an open plot behind a private university in Sohna. Yaduvanshi, who worked as an autorickshaw driver, ferrying school students of a private school, was allegedly abducted from outside the school on Monday, tied up and beaten to death, police said.

DCP Jain said that the girl and her family live in Rewari and the arrested suspects, her cousins, live in Sohna, where the victim lived. “We may also quiz the girl’s family in Rewari and her if required,” he said.

Police said that the three cousins abducted Yaduvanshi in a car from outside the school in the morning hours.

“The trio then took him to a secluded place near a farmhouse in Sanp Ki Nangli where they assaulted him mercilessly. They later put him in the car again and dumped the body on an empty plot behind a private university in Sohna,” Abhilaksh Joshi, assistant commissioner of police (Sohna), said.

“We are trying to recover the car used in the abduction and disposing of the body, and murder weapons, which are wooden bats and phone of the deceased person,” he said.

Dr Sudhir Kumar, who carried out the autopsy of Yaduvanshi’s body, said: “It seems he was made to lie down on his chest and then assaulted mercilessly from head to toe, which resulted in severe internal injuries.”