Liquor trader murder: Second shooter arrested

Gurugram: The Gurugram police crime branch on Thursday arrested the second shooter allegedly involved in the murder of a liquor trader in Hayatpur in Sector 93 on Tuesday night, police officials said. They identified the suspect as Mohit originally from Beri Gate in Jhajjar.

The other shooter, who was arrested earlier on Wednesday, has been sent on a seven-day police remand for a thorough interrogation to uncover the entire conspiracy, officials said on Thursday.

The first shooter, Tek Chand alias Mohit, who belongs to Khera Khurrampur in Farrukhnagar, was arrested from near Najafgarh in Delhi, a day earlier.

Chand along with Mohit had fired multiple times at the liquor trader Baljeet Singh Yadav, 50, after sneaking into his farmhouse at Hayatpur in Sector 93 on Tuesday night while he was asleep. His relative, Ram Kaushik, and an employee Ravinder Kumar were also injured in the shootout.

Gurugram police public relations officer, Sandeep Kumar, said that raids are being conducted at several locations outside the district to nab other suspects involved in the murder.

Police said they were questioning Chand to ascertain if he had acted on the directions of gangster Naresh Sethi, who is associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and presently lodged in Bhondsi jail after being arrested almost three years back.

Sethi, whose house in Jhajjar was searched by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) during a coordinated pan-India raid against gangsters on October 19, 2022, is one of the four prime accused named in Yadav’s murder case registered on the complaint of his nephew Dinesh Singh Yadav at Sector 10 police station.

Other co-accused are Om Bhagwan, Deepak and Mohit Bhuriya. All four are into the liquor trade in Jhajjar and faced a setback after the deceased started his business there by grabbing at least 30-40 outlets, police said.

Sethi’s close associate and another gangster Ajay Jaildar, who is also associated with Bishnoi gang, was the prime conspirator in the double murder of liquor trader brothers Surjeet Singh Thakran and his younger brother and former councillor Paramjeet Singh Thakran who were shot dead in Khod in Pataudi on February 25, 2022 so that their large-scale liquor trade spread across Delhi-NCR could be captured.

Meanwhile, police said they were also interrogating Chand for his suspected involvement in the shootout in which a criminal named Rohit was shot dead in Farrukhnagar on February 24 as he blew the cover of a murder plot.

A senior police official, who did not want to be named, said that Chand is trying to misguide them by repeatedly changing his statements. “However, things will be clearer soon from his detailed interrogation,” he said.

Senior police officials have provided security cover to the deceased’s nephew Dinesh, the partner in the liquor trade in Jhajjar and to his son who runs the tiles manufacturing factory and dairy farm in Hayatpur on Wednesday.