3 main accused in honour killing held, admit crime

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The UP police Thursday arrested the three main suspects allegedly behind the cold-blooded killing of a couple and another woman over “honour” in northwest Delhi’s Ashok Vihar last Sunday. Additional DGP Brij Lal said the Ghaziabad police got a tipoff about some miscreants travelling in an i10 car (DL-8CF-3600). “The car was intercepted in Garh at 3.15 pm and the occupants found to be the accused in the Ashok Vihar triple murder — identified as Mandeep Naggar, Nakul Khari and Ankit Choudhary. They admitted they first killed Shobha, who had eloped with one Ravi, belonging to another community. Then they called Kuldeep and shot him in his car, and finally went to Monica’s house and shot her dead. Monica is the sister of Ankit, while Shobha is Mandip’s sister,” Mr Lal said.
The boys have told the police that the girls had brought considerable dishonour to the family with their love affairs and they had executed the killings to save the family reputation. The police sources said the trio were held following an extensive mobile surveillance trail which led the police to a small suburb in Ghaziabad where the accused were hiding. Sources claimed that Ankit, who was accompanying them on the fateful day, has pleaded ignorance about the crimes and told the interrogators that he was out of Delhi when the murders took place.
Earlier in the day, the Delhi police arrested Mandeep’s distant uncle, Dharam Singh Naggar and Ankit’s brother, Nitin for publicly defending the killings. “We have taken them into preventive custody under Sections 107 (security for keeping peace in the other cases) and 151 (arrest to prevent the commission of cognisable offence) of Cr PC. A police team has been sent to Ghaziabad for getting the custody of three principal accused in the murders. We hope to get them by Friday after which they will be charged under relevant sections. So far, we have not got their custody,” joint commissioner of police (north), Karnal Singh told this newspaper.
The breakthrough comes a day after the Delhi Police declared a reward of Rs 50,000 each on the three suspects and released their photographs.
The incident took place on June 21 when the Delhi police recovered blood-stained bodies of Kuldeep from his Esteem car, just outside his residence, while his wife, Monica, was found shot dead at her residence. The case took a bizarre twist on Tuesday when the body of Monica’s cousin, Shobha, was recovered from a Santro car, barely 300-metre away from their residence on Tuesday.