Facing flak from all quarters of society, Ghaziabad Police on Thursday claimed to have worked out the sensational murder of a businessman and his family in Nai Basti.
The deceased, identified as Satish Chandra Goel (65), his wife Manju (62), son Sachin (40), daughter-in-law Rekha (38) and three grandchildren, Megha (13), Neha (10) and Aman (7), were murdered using a sharp edged weapon on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.
Cash and jewellery worth over Rs 1.5 crore was looted from the house. Ghaziabad Police, under pressure to crack the case at the earliest, paraded an emaciated youth, with a broken leg, who once worked as a driver, as the alleged murderer of the family.
Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Meerut Range, Bhavesh Kumar claimed that Rahul Verma the former driver of the family who was sacked for stealing Rs 4 lakh from the house had committed the gruesome murders for revenge.
However, despite the police claiming to have worked out the case, the IGP could not convince the media and the representatives of several political parties they had called for the Press conference, that the 21-year-old youth, who has done a course in animation and has no criminal record, committed the brutal murders. The IGP claimed that Rahul wanted to steal money to meet his daily expenses after he was sacked by Goel.
In the same breath the IGP claimed that Rahul had loaned Rs 1 lakh to one of his friends out of the money that he had stolen from the businessman’s house ten days ago. The IGP was so unsure of his side of the story that he made many blunders during the Press conference.
Contradictions in the police theory again surfaced when a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) claimed that Rahul barged into the house at 7.30pm and came out of the house after 9.30pm. That meant that the killer remained on the crime spot for two hours or so.
However, the SSP had earlier claimed that the killer was in the house for just 30 minutes.Miffed by the obvious framing of the young man, the politicians started raising slogans against the police and claimed that the police had arrested the innocent young man and planted evidence on him.
When SSP Nitin Tiwari tried to persuade former Congress Minister Satish Sharma that the police had recovered part of the jewellery stolen from the house, Sharma countered him by saying that he knew how the police planted evidence.
Sharma’s sentiments were echoed by the leaders from the Samyukta Vyapar Sangh who discarded the police theory and said the emaciated young man with a broken leg could not have murdered seven people.
The police beat a hasty retreat after former MP Surendra Prakash Goel, former MlA Surendra Kumar Munni, BJP leader Atul Garg and MlA Suresh Bansal questioned their motive.
Atul Garg claimed that the police had implicated an innocent man. BJP city president Ashok Monga accused the police of behaving like Samajwadi Party workers as the whole exercise had been done to create a positive atmosphere before the Chief Minister’s proposed visit to the city on May 26. The beleaguered SSP said that the investigation was still on and the case had not been closed.