Police claim to have solved murder of retired CDA officer, family not convinced
Family members of the deceased said they are not convinced by the police investigation and the real killers are still out there
After two months of investigation, the Greater Noida police on Tuesday said they have solved the blind murder case of a 67-year-old retired senior auditor of the controller of defence accounts (CDA) department, who was shot dead allegedly by an unidentified suspect near his housing society in Greater Noida’s Bisrakh on August 7.
However, family members of the deceased said they are not convinced by the police investigation and the real killers are still out there.
Investigators said the deceased, Hari Prasad, 67, retired as a senior auditor from the CDA in 2015, and resided with his elder son, Praveen Kumar, who works at the Central Bank of India in Delhi, at their home in Stellar Jeevan Society, Greater Noida.
He was seated on a roadside bench nearby his society when he was shot in the neck from behind on the morning of August 7. At the time of the incident, Kumar was at his Delhi office. Prasad’s other two sons reside in Gurugram and Noida.
Following the murder, Prasad’s family members suspected that “it was a professional hit”, as he was shot dead in a resting position, and no one had seen the incident. Also, Prasad’s wallet carrying ₹9,000 cash and a gold ring were intact on his person, but his five-year-old smartphone worth ₹10,000 was stolen.
Shakti Mohan Avasthy, deputy commissioner of police, Central Noida, said, “The suspect has been identified as Malkit Singh, aka Loliya Don, 32, a resident of Geeta Colony in Delhi.”
“The suspect is a habitual offender. On August 7, when he was passing by Surajpur, he stopped near Stellar Jeevan Society Park to drink alcohol. After buying snacks, when he was consuming alcohol on a park bench, Prasad tried to stop him from consuming alcohol at the public park,” said Avasthy.
“Enraged by Prasad’s behaviour, Singh approached him from behind and shot him dead with a pistol he carried at the time of the incident. The suspect took his smartphone and left the spot,” said Avasthy.
One of Prasad’s sons, requesting not to be identified, said, “We are not convinced with the police theory. My father was a decent man; he never misbehaved with anyone without any reason.”
“He was in a resting position when he was killed. There were two more people caught on CCTV camera at the time of the incident, but police cleared them saying they had come to meet a girl. The arrested suspect was not even caught on CCTV camera. When we asked police about how they tracked him, they told us that they used a sketch and months of investigation to track him,” said the family member.
”We will look into the legal procedure to nab the real culprit as they are still roaming free outside,” the family member said.
Reacting to the family members claims, DCP Avasthy said, “If they are not convinced, they can give us leads. We arrested the suspect after collecting multiple pieces of evidence. Singh was involved in multiple robbery and assault cases in the past. On August 7, he carried a pistol when he got into an argument with Prasad.”
“The suspect has admitted to his crime, and 13 cases are registered against him at various police stations in Delhi and Noida,” said Avasthy.
Police said 10 teams interrogated more than 60 people and scanned through footage from nearly 800 CCTV cameras to zero in on the suspect.Teams also relied on sketches to nab the suspect, investigators said.
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