Investigations into Ghosh’s gruesome murder led to the arrest of four men, who, on interrogation, confessed they had killed Ghosh last week and Viswanathan last year.
Had the Delhi Police not solved IT executive Jigisha Ghosh’s murder,
TV journalist Soumya Viswanathan’s murder last September would have remained an unsolved mystery. Investigations into Ghosh’s gruesome murder led to the arrest of four men, who, on interrogation, confessed they had killed Ghosh last week and Viswanathan last year.
Ghosh, 28, was kidnapped from near her Vasant Vihar residence in south Delhi in the early hours of March 18 and later found dead at a roadside in Surajkund, Faridabad. The police claim they have evidence to prove the involvement of the four accused in the murders. They have also recovered the country-made revolver used in Viswanathan’s murder and the cars used by the accused during the crimes.
The police said at least one more accused is absconding and efforts are on to nab him.
Delhi police commissioner YS Dadwal said, “The four arrested men were identified as Ravi Kapoor, Baljeet Malik, Amit Kumar Shukla and Ajay Kumar. Of these, Ravi is a habitual offender with at least 12 criminal cases against him. Ravi, Baljeet and Amit were involved in Jigisha’s murder while all four and an absconder were involved in Soumya’s murder.”
The police are confident they have cracked the Viswanathan case, but Dadwal said they still need to recreate the scene and find some details to make it a foolproof case.
Explaining the events that led to Viswanathan’s murder, Dadwal said that early on September 30, Viswanathan (a TV producer with Headlines Today), was returning home from office, when the accused, who were drunk, spotted her car near the Vasant Vihar Priya Complex and began following her.
They tried to intercept the car at Nelson Mandela Road, but the journalist did not stop. In a fit of rage, Ravi took out his country-made pistol and fired at her. The gang drove away but returned later to see if she was hit. Seeing that she was bleeding and unconscious they fled.”
In the case of Ghosh, an IT executive with Noida-based Hewitt Associates, Dadwal said, “her cab dropped her home at 4.15 am and she was just three metres from her home in Vasant Vihar when the gang spotted her. She was talking on the phone, making her an easy target. On the pretext of seeking directions, they called her near the car and took her in. They drove her to a State Bank of Patiala ATM and forced her to withdraw Rs20,000. They went to another ATM and withdrew Rs5,000. After that they drove towards Surajkund. Jigisha was told she would be freed. But fearing that she would recognise them later, the assailants smothered her to death and dumped her body by the roadside.”
A CCTV footage recorded at one of the ATMs helped the police nail the gang. “A constable identified Baljeet Malik from the CCTV footage recorded at an ATM in Saket. The police laid a trap on
Nelson Mandela Marg (the area where the gang was known to operate in) and nabbed the four.
Sustained interrogation revealed that the gang was responsible for both the murders,” Dadwal said.
The police chief said that while inspecting the car the gang was travelling in, the police found car stickers of a judge of Punjab and Haryana court, fire-arms and even fake badges of media persons.