Cops probe personal enmity angle in BHEL exec murder

NOIDA: The motive behind the murder of BHEL deputy general manager Amit Pandey seems to be gradually shifting from a robbery attempt to a planned attack, police sources have said.
Officers said Pandey had been shot from behind and the bullet had pierced his body and exited from near the larynx, killing him on the spot. Pandey was found dead on a woody stretch off the Noida Expressway on Thursday afternoon. Although the police have finally been able to spot the senior BHEL official in CCTV footage at the Okhla Bird Sanctuary Metro station, they are trying to ascertain the time when he left the station and started walking towards home.

Pandey’s sister Shweta, who was the last one to speak to him over the phone on Wednesday, said she could hear voices calling out to his elder brother before he disconnected the call.

“When I called him at 8:27pm, we had a good 3.37-minute conversation and he seemed to be alone. Then, I heard a voice calling out to him ‘Oye’— possibly that of a woman. I felt he had entered a crowded area. I disconnected the call when I got no response,” Shweta said. Shweta said she had posted on Facebook what she had heard over the phone but later deleted it.

“It seems to be a planned murder, not a robbery attempt. He did not get into an auto or cab, he was walking.”

The CCTV footage of the apartment, where Pandey stayed with his brother and his family, is also missing from Wednesay evening to 6am on Thursday — the time slot when the official is suspected to have been killed. Sources said the housing society’s security department had cited power failure for the missing tape.

The police, who had initially suspected a robbery attempt, are now probing all angles, including personal enmity. The police have found intact a costly watch Pandey was wearing, leading them to explore other motives behind the murder.

“In a robbery attempt, a person is not usually shot from behind,” a police officer said. On Saturday morning, IG (Meerut) Ram Kumar visited the spot where Pandey was found dead. “We are not ruling out personal enmity. We have to verify the role of some people associated with the case. The statements they had given earlier had drawn a link,” Kumar said.

Kumar said the police would also probe how the CCTV footage of the housing society had been missing for several hours since Wednesday evening.

The police have sought the help of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team and the crime branch in the case.