The contract killers who allegedly felled realtor-turned-politician Deepak Bhardwaj appear to be rookies as the vehicle used in the crime turned out out to belong to the prime suspect.
It took police little effort to get past the suspects’ deception and ascertain the real registration number of the vehicle, which enabled them to land at the gunmen’s doorsteps.
Three armed perpetrators came to Bhardwaj’s farmhouse-The Nitesh-on Tuesday morning in a dark grey Skoda laura. The vehicle belonged to one of the accused Rakesh, who was reportedly behind the wheel.
Police sources said while the killers meticulously planned the attack and possibly even went through considerable effort in studying the farmhouse on an earlier occasion, they cut corners on covering their tracks and merely changed the initial alpha-numeric characters on the number plate of their car. The number noted by one of security guards turned out to be very close to the real registration number that ended in 7062 since the last four digits were the same.
The police started tracing the fake number but it was found to have been that of of red Maruti van registered in the name of Savitri Rathore, a resident of Trilokpuri.
later, the police began scrutiny of the series-7062-and finally managed to locate the owner of the Skoda. A senior police official who has been involved in cracking similar cases earlier said that the mistake committed by the killers indicates that they may have been first-timers.
Police sources said that they had checked last four digits-7062-- with the transport authority and it was found that the Skoda laura was registered in the name of a North-West Delhi resident. It was a 2009 model. Further investigation revealed that the previous owner of the car had sold it to one Rakesh of Jind district in Haryana for Rs 8 lakh.
Several teams were formed and dispatched immediately to several places at Jind. Finally, Rakesh was nabbed and the police also detained his associates for questioning. These accomplices provided shelter to remaining two killers and facilitated their escape. The accused also used another car - a Santro to escape from Jind. Experts said that Rakesh made another mistake by hiding out at his residence.
“The way they were brandishing their weapons while leaving from the spot also indicates that they were inexperienced. It is strange that they did not fear being captured on the CCTV cameras installed at the farmhouse. They were completely exposed as four-five people had seen them fleeing the spot,” he said.
The remaining absconding killers have been identified as Purshottam and Sunil. “Initial investigation has revealed that they are from Pooth Khurd Village of Outer Delhi. After scanning the footage collected from the CCTV installed at Bhardwaj’s farmhouse, investigators later scrutinised the dossier of Outer belt criminals especially contract killers. They could not found any previous involvement in any criminal case,” the sources said.