Mehrauli killing a robbery gone awry; 3 arrested

NEW DELHI: The gruesome murder of the assistant manager of a liquor shop in south Delhi's Mehrauli was the fallout of a robbery attempt gone awry.
Police arrested the two robbers after a shootout near Uttam Nagar on Saturday night. The third accomplice was nabbed later.
It was found that the robbers were wrongly tipped-off about the victim carrying cash from the liquor shop back home by their accomplice after which they waylaid him near his house.They entered his car, stabbed and shot at him when he denied carrying any cash.
The two robbers, Pankaj Sharma and Dharmender Yadav, are history-sheeters from Palam village. They were tipped-off about the victim, Brij Bhushan, by Sharma's brother-in-law Vivek Kashyap, who was a regular customer at the liquor shop.
"A team led by inspector (special staff) Hira Lal initially found no clues about the motive behind the murder. The entire incident was reconstructed and a detailed profiling of the deceased was done to find out even the remotest reason that could have triggered the incident," said DCP (south) Ishwar Singh.
Soon, suspicion fell on Kashyap, a delivery boy at a restaurant, who used to frequent the government-run liquor store where Bhushan worked. The police found that even he was missing since the incident.
"It was noticed that the place where Bhushan sat in the liquor vend left him exposed to the walk-in customers. They could see him engaged in his daily activity, including managing the cash from sales," said additional DCP (south) Chinmoy Biswal.
A technical analysis of the CCTV footage showed two hardened criminals to be involved in the attack. On December 31, the probe team was tipped-off about the killers arriving in Uttam Nagar. When they were intercepted, Sharma shot at inspector Jeet Singh from a revolver.
The bullet hit Singh in the chest, but he survived as he was wearing a bulletproof jacket.
Sharma and Yadav were chased and arrested. They gave Kashyap's location at a house in Gautam Nagar from where he was nabbed.
Kashyap told the police that he often found Bhushan counting money at the vend and he would leave for home carrying a bag. Kashyap presumed that he used to carry the cash to his house and decided to rob him. He then approached Sharma and they hatched the robbery.
The criminals recced the spot five times. When they attacked Bhushan, they thought he was lying about the cash and shot him twice, which later led to his death.