Four people including three members of the Gupta family were arrested in the Samarjahan murder case. Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Nivedita Kukreti revealing the names of the four persons arrested said that the master mind of the entire plan was Kartik Singhal, the son of Rakesh Kumar Gupta.
Businessman Rakesh Kumar Gupta was in a live-in relationship with Samarjahan for the past four to five years. His family discovered the nature of his relationship with Samarjahan about one year ago, after which there was tension in Gupta’s family.
The Dehradun SSP said, “The incident happened on the night of May 7 at about 9 PM at Sahastradhara Road. The lady who was murdered was from Muzaffarnagar and had shifted here just 15 days ago. Here she asked Gupta to open a boutique for her.”
“She was living with Rakesh Gupta aka Rakesh Singhal. After questioning neighbours from the area we got to know that there was tension in the family. We sent teams to Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur from where they both hail. The cause of the murder which came to light was the illicit relationship that she was having with Rakesh Gupta. Rakesh Gupta was trying to end their relationship and the deceased too started demanding things. Just 15 days ago a boutique was opened for her.”
“Five empty cartridges were collected by the forensics team from the scene of murder. So far we have arrested four people. Rakesh Gupta, with whom Samarjahan was in illicit relationship, his wife Seema Singhal and their son Kartik Singhal who is 23 years old.
One more person Momin has been arrested. Kartik gave Rs two lakh to the contract killer; he transferred some amount from the cash collection of his family’s restaurant and some he borrowed.”When asked that how they got in touch with contract killers she said, “Father of Kartik’s friend was in Muzaffarnagar jail, because of which he visited the jail a number of times. That’s where he got in touch with the contract killers.
We are trying to identify the main shooter. The investigation is still underway.”
Kukreti said, “Kartik and the contract killers used to contact each through WhatsApp call and messages. In fact, we are trying to recover the WhatsApp data that was deleted by Kartik.”
When asked if all three members of the Gupta family were involved in the conspiracy she said, “I think there was tacit approval by them, but the shootout was planned by one person.
They were planning to murder her for the past seven-eight months.”When the accused Kartik was asked about the murder he said, “I was angry about them having an illicit affair. I gave about Rs two lakh to the contract killer in Muzaffarnagar.”