A senior officer of the state excise department, Yashwant Sharma, was stabbed to death by unidentified men in front of his daughter and five-year-old grandchild in Udaipur on Friday, 29 June, PTI reported.
The 56-year-old officer was travelling on a bus from Ahmedabad with his daughter, Neha and grandchild when the incident happened, NDTV reported.
When their bus stopped, they looked for a taxi and hitched a ride to their destination in Hiranmagri along with four men in a van, the PTI report added.
“When the van driver deviated from the route, Sharma objected. To this, one of the four men stabbed him in his thigh and threw him out of the van,” Rajendra Prasad, SP Udaipur told PTI.
"After around 50-60 metres, they threw his daughter along with her son on the roadside after snatching her mobile phone. The robbers did not hurt them,” Prasad said.
According to NDTV, the assailants absconded with his daughter’s belongings in a car which had a Gujarat number.
According to The Times of India, while the victim was bleeding profusely, Neha cried for help until passers-by spotted them and rescued them.
The TOI report cited that Additional SP (city) Harsh Ratnu and police teams rushed to the spot and took the victims to the hospital where Yashwant Sharma was declared dead.
Rajendra Prasad, SP Udaipur, told PTI that Sharma died due to excessive bleeding.
An FIR for abduction, robbery and murder has been filed, the daily reported.
“We have no clue about the assailants so far. CCTV footage has been sought and a special team as well as the entire police force of the city has been deployed to catch the murderers,” DySP Bhagwat Singh Hingar told TOI.
The police is probing the case from all angles to ascertain whether the motive behind the crime was robbery or personal enmity, PTI quoted the SP as saying.
The deceased was posted in Udaipur and had gone to Ahmedabad for his daughter's treatment.
(With inputs from PTI, The Times of India and NDTV)
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