New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Monday claimed a breakthrough in the murder of elderly businessman Ashok Khanna and arrested security guard Mithilesh Pandey. Khanna was murdered in September last year and his battered body was found at his Hailey Road residence.
Police say Pandey bludgeoned his employer to death in a fit of rage, after being sacked. The crime branch arrested him just as he was boarding a train back to Bihar.
"Mithlesh Pandey, who had gone missing since the brutal murder of Ashok Khanna at his residence at Bungalow No.7 Hailey Road, here last year, was arrested from the New Delhi railway station Sunday afternoon," said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Satyendra Garg was quoted as saying by IANS.
According to the police, Khanna was found murdered in his bungalow on September 11 last year when his elder son Shiv came to check on his father because he was not answering the phone.
Khanna had injury marks all over his body. Some injuries appeared to have been inflicted with a sharp-edged weapon, and the police at that time said they had found a blood-soaked garden axe from the room, which seemed the likely weapon of attack.
Initially, the police suspected that Khanna had been killed due to a property dispute as he lived alone in his ancestral bungalow for the past several years, while his wife, a fashion designer, and two sons lived in Greater Kailash-I.
Later ruling out the property dispute motive, the police said that Pandey, a full-time security guard, had most likely killed Khanna in a fit of rage.
"Pandey in his interrogation revealed that he was detailed at Khanna's bungalow for a month before the murder took place. On Sep 11, Khanna had complained to his placement agency that he was sleeping on duty as he failed to open the bungalow's gate," Garg said.
"On Khanna's complaint, two people from the security agency arrived at the bungalow and took Pandey away along with them. They dropped him near Modern School, Barakhamba Road. Enraged, Pandey returned to the bungalow and entered the house by breaking open a side window," he added.
He then killed Khanna, took his wallet, mobile and cash and left for Lakhi Sarai in Bihar, the police official said.
The bungalow in the prized Hailey Road area near Connaught Place was a disputed property and the case was pending before a city court. It was originally leased in the name of Khanna's uncle. After he passed away, the land's possession was given to Khanna and his two brothers, the police said.
A few years ago, the brothers entered into a deal with a private firm to build a housing complex on that plot, but in 2000-01 Khanna cancelled the deal on the plea that the firm had failed to construct the housing complex in the stipulated time.
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