In a breakthrough in the city's liquor vend firing incident, the Manesar crime branch unit of the Gurugram Police has nabbed one of the shooters who was involved in the shootout, in which one person was killed and two others sustained gunshot injuries.
The arrested accused has been identified as Rohit Gadaria (21), a resident of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, who was arrested from village Daboda located on Farukhnagar-Helimandi road on Sunday, police said. The incident took place at a liquor shop in the Pachgaon area at around 8.30 p.m. on Friday when two armed assailants opened fire.
A video of the incident went viral on social media, in which the attackers could be seen opening firing. The police had also announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for any information about the killers.
During questioning, the accused disclosed before the police that, he and his two associates Saurabh and Deepak Nagar works for gangster Lipin Nehra and at his behest, the trio had carried out this incident. According to the police, Lipin Nehra had asked the complainant, Kuldeep Singh, to transfer the ownership of his Discovery Wine Shop located near Panchgaon Chowk to his father Dayaram Nehra, but the complainant did not transfer the same.
"Lipin Nehra, to pressurise the complainant and establish his supremacy, asked his gang members to execute the crime following which the trio accused committed the incident. The culprits had to carry out similar incidents in Faridabad, Rewari and Pataudi," Vijay Pratap Singh, DCP (crime) said.
The accused also revealed that on the incident day, they had come on a motorcycle, he (Rohit) was driving the motorcycle. He parked the motorcycle nearby the liquor shop and his two accomplices Saurabh and Deepak Nagar went to the wine shop and fired about 19 rounds and fled on the motorcycle.
"Thereafter, they went to their room in IMT Manesar and from there they went to Kosli in (Rewari). Rohit was trying to run away from here. To avoid arrest, he boarded the bus and went to Uttar Pradesh but he was nabbed by the police on the way," the DCP said.
Earlier, a complaint was filed by shop owner Kuldeep Singh, in which he claimed that he and his brother Praveen had received a threatening international call a week ago, stating that they would face consequences if they did not transfer the ownership of the shop to their names.
The incident took place on Friday at around 8:30 p.m. when two armed assailants reached the shop to buy liquor and opened fire at the crowd. Three customers -- Sandeep, a resident of Saharanpur in UP, and Devraj Sharma and Rajendra Prasad, both residents of Alwar in Rajasthan -- were critically injured while some others received minor injuries.
The three were rushed to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared Sandeep brought dead. An FIR has been registered against the unidentified caller and two shooters under the relevant sections of the IPC at the Manesar police station.