Noida police arrested five people in connection with the carjacking and murder of Amity student Akshay Kalra, following an encounter on Tuesday, 27 October. Two others were subsequently arrested on Tuesday in connection with the attempted sale of Kalra’s vehicle, that was stolen by the accused.
Kalra, a 25-year-old student of Amity University, passed away on 4 September, two days after he was assaulted in an alleged carjacking incident in Noida.
The accused, Kuldeep Chauhan, Vikas Kumar, Sonu Singh, Shameem Sheikh and Ajay Kumar Rathore, were arrested after an exchange of fire.
The Arrest
ACP Rajneesh Verma informed The Quint that the five murder accused were spotted in the vehicle (Hyundai Creta) that had belonged to the deceased, near the NIB Check Post at the Noida-Ghaziabad border. They were stopped but tried to flea, following which a chance encounter took place, said the police.
According to media reports, four of them sustained injuries on the leg while one other accused was arrested during a combing operation.
On 2-3 September, Kalra was attacked by a group of people, who in the process of attempting to steal his car, hit him on the head with a brick, inform the ACP.
ACP Rajneesh Verma also told The Quint, that two others, Vasunandan Tiwari and Nasheem, were not involved in the murder but later got involved in the attempted sale of the stolen vehicle. They were arrested later on Tuesday.
The role of one other person, who hails from Haryana, is being probed at the moment in connection with the attempted sale, informed the ACP.
Talking about the probe in the case, which had gone on for over a month before the Tuesday’s arrests, ACP Rajneesh said:
“Our NCR team checked over 100 parking areas, footage from around 1,000 CCTV cameras, probed over 107 people involved in gangs... We come to know of the location where they had gone to sell the Creta. We accessed CCTV footage, and used other means of electronic surveillance to track the accused.”
ACP Rajneesh said that the stolen Creta has been recovered. In it, the brick used to hit Kalra was also found under a seat. Among other things, a snooker stick that Kalra’s father had gifted him was also found in the car in which five of the accused had chased the student’s vehicle.
The accused have been remanded under Sections 396 (dacoity with murder), 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) and120 (concealing design to commit offence punishable with imprisonment) of the IPC.
The Carjacking & Murder
According to Hindustan Times, Kalra had left his house, in a white Hyundai Creta, at 10:45 pm.
The ACP informed that on the night of the incident, the accused were near an eatery in Sector 62 when they spotted Akshay in the Creta. They followed the car with the intention of stealing it and after a failed attempt, finally managed to stop Kalra.
Kalra had, according to TOI, attempted to leave his car and run away from the accused. His wallet was also missing.
Additional commissioner of police Love Kumar told TOI that one of the accused saw that the car did not have a key and assumed that Kalra was running away with it.
The police commissioner told TOI that the accused started chasing him and Kalra’s legs got entangled. Thereafter, Kalra reportedly threw the car keys but his head hit a divider.
Following this another accused hit Kalra on his head with a brick.
This incident, according to media reports, occurred only a few metres’ distance from his housing society.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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