New Delhi: A joint team of Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have arrested two people for the murder of the TCS employee Ankit Chouhan.
Chouhan was shot dead on April 13, 2015 in broad daylight in Noida Sector 74.
The accused have been identified as Shashank Jadon and Manoj Kumar.
IG, STF, Amitabh Yash, said, “Accused Shashank was a brilliant student and a graduate from Delhi College of Engineering.”
The 25-year-old civil engineer completed his BE in 2014. Son of a railway employee, he had scored 95 % in class XII. After graduation, He started working as a real estate broker.
The other accused, Manoj, is a mechanic and is driving a taxi for OLA for the last six months.
Yash said that motive behind the murder was robbery. During interrogation, Shashank broke down and revealed that he had incurred loss in his business. He had borrowed money from a friend, Pankaj, who had criminal ties.
Pankaj was putting pressure on Shashank to pay the money back. A few days later, Pankaj received a contract of Rs 4 lakh, given by Satpal, a noted criminal from Bulandshahr to carjack a Toyota Fortuner. As Shashank was under debt, he accepted the contract. Manoj was roped in as he was engine and gear box mechanic.
Going by an eyewitness account of a Honda Accord spotted near the crime scene, they managed to zero in on Shashank, two years after the murder.
After several raids, Shashank was arrested from near Dhaula Kuan. During interrogation, he confessed of murdering Chouhan.
He told the police that they tried to make Chouhan stop his vehicle at gunpoint but he did not, and they ended up shooting him. Shashank and Manoj then got scared and left the spot without stealing the Fortuner.
Accused Shashank had a tattoo on his hand, a relevant mark which was pointed out by the eye witness Gagan.
A third accused, Pankaj, died six months ago due to multiple organ failure.