The Noida police arrested three men on Tuesday night from near the zero point on Yamuna Expressway for allegedly murdering their colleague on September 8 because of a dispute over the division of money in an MBBS admission scam, in which all of them were involved.
The suspects were identified as Neeraj Kumar Singh (30), Nikhil Gaurav (25), both natives of Bihar, and Dheerendra Kumar Sharma (41) of Azamgarh. All three were residing in Delhi, the police said.
“Seven people were involved in the murder, four of whom are absconding at the moment. On the night of the murder, the accused and the victim had some drinks at their office after which Rawat was taken to Wajidpur, where the suspects drove a Brezza car (registered in Neeraj’s name) over the victim thrice to kill him and mutilate his body,” senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vaibhav Krishna said, adding that the suspects had planted fake evidence at the spot to mislead the police.
All suspects have been identified, the police said.
The body of the victim, Rishi Singh aka Sanjeev Rawat (40), was found on September 9 in Wajidpur village under the jurisdiction of the Expressway police. The body’s identity could be established only after an anonymous person identified him as the operations manager of a Sector 4-based firm, Crack your Career. The police then informed Rawat’s wife who confirmed that her husband had been missing since September 8. Based on the wife’s statements, the police started investigating the role of his colleagues into the suspected murder.
“The accused, including the victim, ran a fake MBBS admissions scam. In their statements, the suspects have confessed to the crime and said they were worried that the victim would expose them all. That is why they decided to kill him. Even though they were all drunk at the time of the incident, it seems to be a planned murder,” Krishna said.
The police recovered Rs 1 lakh from the suspects, Rawat’s car (a Swift Dzire), nine cellphones, 24 fake stamps of various institutions and data of MBBS aspirants, among other things.
According to the police, the suspects would obtain aspirants’ data from vendors and contact parents on the pretext of helping their children gain admission to desired colleges. They would take Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh from their targets and once they had duped enough people, the suspects would close their office and move on to a new location, the police said.
According to the police, the suspects had raked in nearly Rs 65 lakh in a couple of months, but the victim was asking for an additional Rs 35 lakh, apart from his share. The police said that Rawat had details of the entire operation in a pen drive, leading the suspects to believe that Rawat could potentially expose them.
Following Rawat’s murder, all the suspects absconded, but Neeraj and Nikhil, an engineer, started another firm in Pitampura, Delhi. Both were arrested based on tip-offs from informants, the police said.
Talking about how the gang’s operations, the police said the gang’s mastermind, Neeraj, an MBA from Bengaluru, had come to Delhi to prepare for UPSC exams in 2013. This is when he met Dheerendra, an arts graduate. The two started duping people on the pretext of getting them jobs in the Railways and had also gone to jail in this regard, the officer said.
“When they started living as paying guests in Mukherjee Nagar, Delhi, they met Anwar, a native of Bihar. Anwar was already involved with an MBBS admission scam and they started a firm from Sector 62, Noida, in which the victim was also involved. The company operated from June 2018 to August 2018 and duped numerous of people. They would show the victims fake admission letters and would vacate the premises after taking money,” Krishna said, adding that the police are on the lookout for Anwar, who is absconding.
During investigation it was revealed that the suspects also had a disagreement with a man named Roshan, their suspected partner in the Sector 62-based firm over division of profits; he was found murdered in Patna in August this year. “Though arrests were made in the case, Neeraj had escaped the police,” Krishna said.
The Bihar police also carried out raids at Anwar’s house in Bihar on Tuesday night, but he could not be found.
The police added that suspects also ran branches in Delhi and Chandigarh and the police are working on identifying the exact number of people they have duped and the money involved.
The arrested men have been booked under sections 302, 201, 34 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code. They were produced before a magistrate on Wednesday and sent to police custody.
