A 25-year-old man was shot dead in full public view in front of his house in North-East Delhi's Usmanpur area on Tuesday morning.
This is the third murder in the past 35 hours where men have been shot dead close to their homes by bike-borne assailants. Police on Tuesday said the deceased has been identified as Rohit Pal, adding that the suspects are yet to be identified.
While the two murders are linked to growing gang war in North-East Delhi between the Chennu and Naseer gang, police suspect personal enmity as the motive behind the murder of Rohit. The murder took place in Kartar Nagar colony.
A senior police officer said that the motive behind the crime or the sequence of events is not clear as there was no eyewitness available and till Tuesday evening no CCTV footage had emerged either.
According to his family, he had left his home between 6 and 7 am to attend a Mata Ki Chowki but police claimed that he was consuming alcohol with his three friends.
“A PCR call was made around 9-15 a.m. about an injured man lying on the road. A police team reached the spot and rushed him to a hospital where he was declared brought dead,” said a senior police officer. An abandoned two wheeler was also found close to the body, police suspect that the assailant (s) had used it to carry out the shooting.
“We have identified the owner of the bike who is being questioned. He claims that someone had borrowed the motor cycle. We are verifying his claims,” said the officer
Asked if the case was linked to the previous murders or any gangwar, the senior police officer said that they were looking at all angles.
He said Rohit himself had a criminal record. “Records show at least a couple of cases registered against him, including one under Section 382 (Theft after preparation made for causing death, hurt or restraint in order to the committing of the theft) of the Indian Penal Code. We are probing if he had any enmity with anyone.”
Rohit ran a small garments business in Gandhi Nagar cloth market while his father Bhuleram is the head lineman in power distribution company, BSES. A case of murder has been registered at New Usmanpur police station.
Similar incidents were reported in Brahmapuri and Maujpur in a span of three hours between Sunday night and the early hours of Monday.