A 38-year-old businessman was killed by a gang of dacoits, who first sedated a security guard and then victim's parents with chloroform and attacked him when he resisted, at his farmhouse in south Delhi's Chhatarpur area in the wee hours today.
The gang is believed to have accessed the posh DLF Farms in Chhatarpur around 1 AM. They first held the security guard at gunpoint and sedated him with chloroform before they scaled the walls of Gupta's farmhouse, a senior police official said.
The gang entered Gupta's farmhouse through a kitchen window and first targeted his parents who were sleeping on the ground floor. They sedated them with chloroform and took away cash and jewellery.
After that, at least three gang members went upstairs where Gupta was sleeping. When they tried to gag him with a chloroform-soaked piece of cloth he woke up and a scuffle broke out between them.
However, they soon managed to overpower Gupta. While one of them strangled him, another gagged his face with the chloroform-soaked cloth, following which he turned motionless, the official said.
Meanwhile, a neighbour who had returned home late, witnessed the commotion in Gupta's residence and called up police informing about a quarrel in the family.
The police team which rushed to attend the call soon evaluated the actual situation and called for reinforcement, following which the entire farmhouse was surrounded and all its entry and exit points were blocked, the official said.
Police teams then went inside and arrested five persons identified as - Ajay, Vipin, Vinod, Shivnath and Vinod Kumar, all aged between 18 and 38 years. At least one of their accomplices is believed to have escaped.
All the accused are natives of a village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district and they did not have any temporary residence in Delhi, raising suspicion that they were hired for the act.
Police are probing the role of a former domestic help who was sacked by Gupta last Diwali. He too was from Bihar and it is possible that he held a grudge against Gupta. A team has been sent to track him down, the official said.
"A case of murder, dacoity and illegal possession of arms has been registered and the five arrested persons are being interrogated," additional DCP (south) Nupur Prasad said.
Gupta and his parents were found motionless. They were rushed to AIIMS where Gupta was declared dead. Prima facie, he was strangulated to death but the police have not ruled out the role of chloroform overdose. His body was later sent for postmortem examination.
Gupta's farmhouse is located on a plot of land that also
houses two more bungalows, one belonging to a relative of Ponty Chadha. The three bungalows are connected by a common path and an entrance which is guarded by a security guard.
The Guptas have a hosiery export business. Rohan was divorced and lived with his parents Kishan and Rashmi Gupta. They have two domestic helps who were sleeping at the outhouse at the time of the incident. They are also being questioned, a senior official said.
The investigators are probing if any of the accused persons were aware of the layout of the farmhouse, had worked there before or known to any of the former domestic help or staff members of the Guptas.
From preliminary investigation, it has emerged that the accused had conducted recce before executing the crime. They had keenly observed the movements of the Guptas but the attack on Rohan was unplanned, an official privy to the investigation said.
The previous crime record of the gang members are also being scanned. Crime and Forensic teams of south district were sent to the farmhouse and the statements of Rohan's parents and the neighbour, who called up police, have been recorded, the official added.
