Sitting outside the mortuary of Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital and beside himself with grief, Pankaj Mehra couldn’t believe he had lost his wife whom he had married 10 years ago. “It was a love marriage,” he said, tearing up.
Mr. Mehra claimed he had been receiving threat calls for the last 15 days from a Sonipat-based moneylender Monu to whom he owed ₹4-5 lakh. “I wasn’t able to pay interest on the amount for the last two months because my restaurant had to shut down in September,” he claimed.
Moneylender’s house
On the night of the incident, before heading home, Mr. Mehra had taken the family to Paharganj where Monu allegedly lives. “Priya asked me to show her his house just in case she ever has to approach the police. So I showed her the house from a distance,” he said, suspecting that the assailants might have seen them and been tipped off to follow them.
According to the family, the moneylender visited the house of Sabina Mehra, Mr. Mehra’s sister, on Monday looking for him and threatened the family over the money. “ Kab tak chhupega, jab milega to dekh lenge usey [Till when will he evade us, we’ll see when we find him] he told my mother,” claimed Ms. Sabina Mehra’s son.
‘Didn’t approach cops’
Mr. Mehra had also shifted his residence from Shalimar Bagh to Rohini Sector 15 a few months ago because he didn’t want the moneylender to know his whereabouts, he said.
Mr. Mehra also claimed that a few months ago, he was taken to Sonipat by Monu and beaten up inside a room. “In August, he asked me to accompany him to meet his brother. They took me to a room, beat me up there and asked me to pay,” he said, adding that the same happened a few days later at an accommodation in Mukherjee Nagar.
“I didn’t approach the police because I was the one in debt and these men are powerful. I felt it better not to get into a fight with them,” he said.
When Mr. Mehra told Priya about the threats and the beating, she asked him to leave the city and move to Bhopal where some of her relatives reside.
“I wish I had listened to her. She kept telling me to leave the city but I thought I’ll be considered an absconder. I thought I’ll eventually pay the debt and get it over with,” he said.
