The murder of 34-year-old Priya Mehra in North-West Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh was supposed to be the handiwork of contract killers, whom her husband Pankaj Mehra, a restaurant owner, had been planning to hire. But a heated argument between the couple over his debauched lifestyle led to Pankaj himself losing his temper and murdering his wife.
The couple was returning from the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara with their son in the wee hours of Wednesday when an argument broke out over Pankaj’s first marriage. Priya threatened to divorce him if he did not leave his first wife. Enraged by her threat, Pankaj first beat her up and then shot her with his illegally-procured pistol while they were just 2 km away from their residence in Shalimar Bagh. All this while, their son was sitting on his mother’s lap.
“Knowing the gravity of his crime, Pankaj tried to mislead the police by weaving alibis but his lies were nailed by sleuths who found too many contradictions in his story. Inconsistencies in the statement coupled with CCTV footage from a chemist shop led sleuths to zero in on Pankaj. During interrogation, Pankaj broke down and confessed to the murder of his wife,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), North-West district, Milind Dumbere said.
“In his earlier statement, Pankaj had claimed that some men in a Swift intercepted his car and shot at him. However, the bullet missed him and hit his wife” said a senior police officer, part of the team which interrogated Pankaj.
“Footage of one CCTV camera installed at a chemist shop does not corroborate his claim. It shows the presence of Pankaj’s car only in the area when Pankaj took a U-turn on the red light near the Rohini jail,” he added.
“The murder happened in a fit of rage. Pankaj confessed that after Priya, who had been living with her mother for 11 months, came back, he started planning to kill her. He was already married to a woman before he married Priya. She wanted him to leave his first wife. They had several arguments over the issue. Besides, Pankaj’s flirtatious nature used to cause a lot of tension to Priya. She even caught Pankaj with a mistress, forcing her to leave his house and live with her mother,” said police.
It has been revealed that Pankaj had affairs with at least six women.
The financial help Pankaj took from Priya’s father without telling her had further worsened their already strained relations, police said.
Pankaj told police that he used to carry the revolver as he feared that he would be attacked by the moneylenders from whom he had taken loans.
After the murder, Pankaj hatched a plan to frame his Sonipat-based moneylender Monu. “For close to ten hours, we kept questioning Pankaj. He kept repeating that a car waylaid his car, three unidentified men came out of it and threatened to kill him if he did not repay his loan. One of them had opened fire at him. But bullet missed him and hit his wife,” police said.
As per his statement, Pankaj said Monu had come to his in-laws house last month, threatening him to pay back his money.
Following allegations levelled by Pankaj, one of the teams also dug out details of Monu.
However, police did not find any conclusive evidence to suspect his involvement in the murder.
“Pankaj was desperate to frame Monu in a false case as he was under tremendous pressure from Monu to repay the loan. So he hatched a plan to kill Priya,” police said.
Police said that Pankaj was arrested and a case registered against him for the murder under various sections of IPC. “Police teams are scouring the murder spot and its adjoining areas to recover the revolver used in the commission of the crime,” the DCP added.
