Cracking a blind murder case within 72 hours, the Noida Police on Friday claimed to have arrested three people, including two contract killers, who shot dead a 27-year-old woman after barging into her house earlier this week.
The third arrested person is the 42-year-old mother-in-law of the murdered woman and had planned the killing because she was against the marriage of her son and daughter-in-law, the police said.
Soni, who was married to Mausam Kumar, was shot dead inside their home in Brij Vihar colony in the Badalpur police station area on September 5 afternoon by two unidentified men who had come on a motorcycle.
This was Soni’s second marriage and after her murder, her husband had lodged a complaint with the police, suspecting that her former husband could be behind the killing.
“Immediately after the incident, senior officers reached the spot and an investigation was launched. Four police teams were formed and today, the case has been solved. Three people have been arrested,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Noida) Suniti said.
“The main conspirator in the case was Soni’s mother-in-law Geeta Devi. She had hired two people, Sachin Yadav and Umesh Singh (both local residents), who did the job against a payment of Rs 1 lakh,” the officer told reporters.
According to police, Geeta was not happy with her son’s marriage to Soni, who had gotten married for the second time and already had a daughter with her former husband.
Geeta lives in Ghaziabad and after his wedding to Soni, Mausam relocated to Badalpur near Noida and did not disclose his location to his parents. His mother also complained that Mausam was not taking care of them and focused only on his new family, an official added.
The police said Sachin and Umesh were arrested on the basis of manual intelligence and tip-off by an informer around 8 am Friday. After their arrest, the duo revealed the whole conspiracy and then Geeta was arrested from her residence.
Later, Sachin told police that after the September 5 shootout, he and Umesh had hidden the pistol near a Mulberry tree on a ‘kachcha’ lane close to Duriyai Girdharpur village.
“When Sachin was taken to the spot for recovery of the weapon, he helped find it. When he was being brought back to the police station, he suddenly pulled out the service weapon on a sub-inspector and aimed it at the police team. In immediate response for self-defence, I opened fire and Sachin got hurt on his left leg after which he was once again taken into custody,” Badalpur SHO Brahmpal Singh said.
Meanwhile, the police department has announced a Rs 25,000 reward for the team which cracked the blind murder case within 72 hours, according to officials.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI)
