The 26-year-old son of a Delhi Police assistant commissioner was allegedly pushed into a canal by two of his friends amid a long-standing financial dispute in Haryana’s Panipat, police said on Friday.
A search operation has been launched to find the victim, Lakshya Chauhan. Meanwhile, police have arrested one of his two friends and efforts to catch the other one is underway.
Chauhan and his two friends — Vikas Bhardwaj and Abhishek — had gone to Haryana’s Sonipat on Monday to attend marriage ceremony.
However, when he did not come home on Tuesday and his phone was switched off, his father ACP Yashpal Singh, lodged a missing complaint on Tuesday. Singh was posted as ACP (Operations) in Outer-north Delhi.
During the probe, police suspected foul play in Chauhan’s disappearance and converted his missing complaint into an abduction FIR. A police official involved in the matter said that on Friday, charges of murder were also added to the case and one person was arrested.
Chauhan, an advocate by profession, lived with parents in outer Delhi’s Samaypur Badli area. He was practicing at the Tis Hazari court. While Abhishek was his acquaintance, Bhardwaj was working as a clerk for another lawyer at Tis Hazari.
Three days after Chauhan went missing, the 19-year-old Abhishek was detained by the police for questioning. During the interrogation, he told the cops that Bhardwaj had called him on Monday noon, asking him to attend a marriage function with him and Chauhan in Sonipat.
Bhardwaj had also told him that Chauhan had loaned some money from him but whenever he asked him to return it, he misbehaved with him. Following this Bhardwaj conspired with Abhishek to eliminate the top cop’s son, the official said.
ACP Singh’s son picked the accused up near Rohini’s Mukarba Chowk. They reached the marriage function venue by night and left from there after 12 am, another official noted.
On their way back, the trio stopped the car roadside to attend nature’s call near the Munak Canal. Finding this to be the right time, Bhardwaj and Abhishek allegedly pushed Chauhan into the canal and fled the scene in his car.
After entering Delhi, Bhardwaj dropped Abhishek near Narela and left from there. A police official said that Abhishek detained from his near in Narela on Thursday.
On the basis of Abhishek’s statement, his arrest was made and Section 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was also added to the abduction FIR.
“We arrested Abhishek after he confessed to murdering Chauhan along with Vikas by pushing him into the Munak canal that is nearly 16-feet deep and has four channels, of which two flow towards Delhi and the other two towards Haryana. The search for Chauhan’s body continued on Friday. But divers are yet to find it,” an official was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
Meanwhile, police said they have discovered that Bhardwaj is trying to seek legal help from people close to him after telling them that he killed Chauhan by pushing him into the canal after a heated argument in the wee hours of Tuesday, January 23.
A massive search operation to find Lakshya’s body and nab the other accused is underway, Vikas Bhardwaj.
(With PTI inputs)
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