The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai police on Thursday arrested slain Haryana gangster Sandeep Gadoli’s former girlfriend and her mother from their house in Gurgaon, police said.
The five-member SIT from Mumbai, dressed in civilian clothes, raided the house of 19-year-old Divya Pahuja in Baldev Nagar here and arrested her and her mother from there.
Divya allegedly convinced Gadoli to drop arms ahead of his staged encounter in a Mumbai hotel by the Gurgaon crime branch team on February 7.
According to sources, Divya came into contact with Gadoli through his friend, Manish Khurana, who also runs the hotel where she used to work.
“The accused Gurgaon cops had instructed Divya, as well as Manish and his friend Deepak, to ensure that Gadoli was without his weapon at the time of his ‘killing’ in Mumbai. Through her mother, Divya informed the Gurgaon policemen that the gangster was unarmed,” sources said.
“The mother-daughter duo was to get Rs 2 crore for this job,” claimed one of Gadoli’s family members.
Earlier, Divya managed to evade arrest on two occasions. Twice, the Mumbai police went looking for her in Gurgaon and Delhi but did not find her.
Besides Divya and her mother, Mumbai SIT arrested Sub-Inspector Pradhuman Yadav, who led the alleged encounter, constable Vikram Singh and Jitender, members of the team.
The trio are on police remand.
According to Mr. Yadav’s statement to SIT: “On February 7, after the first rounds were fired, the woman, Divya Pahuja, who was in Mumbai hotel with Gadoli, came out of the bathroom and kept standing there.”
Gadoli’s family alleged that he was killed by the Gurgaon police to benefit Gadoli’s rival Gurgaon gangster Binder Gujjar.
