Perturbed over having lost his girlfriend to a colleague, a young engineer working for a reputed private firm ended up killing a woman acquaintance whose mobile phone he wanted to use to make extortion calls to raise money for hiring a contract killer to eliminate his girlfriend's fiancé. The accused has now been arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police.
A businessman complained to the police that he had received a threat call on his mobile phone on July 7 demanding Rs.15 lakh. Identifying himself as Sultan, the caller claimed that he worked for underworld don Hussain and that someone had hired him to eliminate his son.
Following a series of negotiations, the amount was scaled down to 7 lakh. The businessman was asked to hand over the money near the General Post Office in Gole Market on Wednesday. Subsequently a team led by Inspector Arvind Kumar laid a trap and arrested the suspect when he was leaving in his car with a bag containing wads of note-size plain paper with currency notes placed on top of them. The accused was identified as Bikramjit Singh (28), a resident of Paschim Vihar.
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During interrogation, Bikramjit made startling revelations. He purportedly disclosed that he had done engineering in electronics and communication from a university in the Capital in 2005. The next year he joined a reputed company in neighbouring Gurgaon on a salary package of Rs.7 lakh per annum. In due course, he fell in love with a woman colleague. However, about eight months ago she allegedly left him for one of his junior colleagues, whose salary was higher than his. The two got engaged.
Bikramjit allegedly told the police that he felt humiliated and planned to eliminate his former girlfriend's fiancé. According to the police, he needed money to procure a weapon and hire a criminal for the job. Hence, he planned to target a businessman. “He also wanted money to be at par with the girl's family in financial status,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Chand.
The accused, who knew that the woman's fiancé was likely to return from the United States in May, identified his target and tried to buy a mobile phone connection on fake identification papers to make extortion calls without getting identified. He also tried other ways, but when he did not succeed, he allegedly decided to kill a female acquaintance named Renu, a resident of Burari, and use her mobile phone.
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Bikramjit, who had met the woman along with a friend in May 2008, contacted her in April and armed with a knife, he went to meet her. However, he could not locate her residence and had to make enquiries from the locals. Fearing that he could be identified, he dropped the plan.
When in June Bikramjit learnt that the woman's fiancé would return in September, he called up Renu and they decided to meet after July 4. Three days later he again contacted the woman, mother of two children, from a public telephone booth in Madhuban Chowk, left his car at the Pitampura metro station's parking lot and went to Burari by bus. The accused stabbed the woman in the neck, took her mobile phone and then dumped the knife and his bag into a drain in Paschim Vihar. The same mobile phone was used to make extortion calls to the businessman, the police said.