A joint team of Special Task Force (UP) and Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday night dropped the net on two hitmen who were on the lam after killing a software engineer during a botched up carjacking in Noida two years back. The CBI had announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakhs for their arrest.
The arrested were identified as Shashank Jadaun of Pratap Vihar, Ghaziabad and Manoj Kumar of Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad and a Honda Accord car used with a fake number plate was also recovered from them.
As per reports, software engineer Ankit Chauhan was gunned down and his Fortuner car was looted on a bypass in Sector 49 police station area of Noida during daytime on April 13, 2015. Eye witnesses had revealed that Chauhans car was stopped by three persons who had deboarded from a Honda Accord car (UP 14/ BA 2300). After preliminary investigation, the case was handed over to the CBI.
During the probe the sleuths scanned the registration number of the vehicle and came to the conlusion that it had eerie similarity with a similar car with number UP 14/ AB 2200 and contacted its owner who told the the cops that he had sold the vehicle to Shashank Jadaun. Crosschecking the sale documents it was established it that the same car was used with a changed numbe plate. Afte thorough surveillance, the joint team of STF and CBI netted Shashank Jadaun and Manoj Kumar from Dhaula Kuan area of Delhi as they drove from Jaipur late Thursday night.
During quizzing its transpired that Jadaun did a Civil Engineering course from a Delhi institute in 2014 and later dabbled in real estate. After earning ricch dividends initially, he suffered setback due to the slump in the business. Earlier he had given some cash to a friend Pankaj which he started asking from his friend in Februray of 2015. Expressing inability to pay up, Pankaj who had a criminalback ground floated the idea of robbing a Fortuner which could bring in good money from one of his aides in Bulandshahr.
On the fateful day, Jadaun along with Pankaj and Manoj Kumar intercepted the Fortuner SUV of techie Ankit Chauhan on a bypass road and when Chauhan resisted, Jadaun shot him from close range but was unable to drag him out of the car as he was his seatbelt on. As a result, the robbers pnicked and fled the scene with taking thecar. During the course of probe, Pankaj died of kidney failure at a hospital in Ghaziabad.
On the information provided by the arrested duo, the Honda Accord sedan was also recovered.