GURGAON: After 15 days of investigation, scanning footage from over 400 CCTV cameras and interrogating more than 200 people, police on Thursday said they had arrested the killers of software engineer Pooja Sharma, who was shot in the head on a lane off the Southern Peripheral Road on November 3 while on a drive with her boyfriend.
The probe, however, appears to have veered right back to the carjacking theory that the special investigation team (SIT) set up to probe this case had initially believed to be implausible – the three suspects taken into custody are wanted in around 100 cases of snatching and robbery between them. The three allegedly committed one more murder in the city after that, on November 14.
Pooja (26) was driving her boyfriend’s Creta when they were ambushed by three men on a dimly lit road leading towards DPS International School in Sector 65. They were headed towards M3M Skycity — where Sagar Manchanda, to whom Pooja was supposed to get married in December had booked a flat – but had turned around. That was when they were waylaid.
Pooja and Sagar were asked to roll down the windows. The attackers fired a shot through the windscreen that missed Sagar and through the driver’s window right into Pooja’s head. She succumbed to a critical brain injury on November 5.
Pooja, an employee of a leading multinational IT company, had returned to her hometown, Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari, earlier this year to work from home. She was based out of the IT major’s Gurgaon office. She had come to Delhi-NCR on October 25 to plan her wedding and get her official laptop changed.
The arrested trio — Hariom alias Kuldeep, Irshad alias Golu, and Jitender alias Jitu — was nabbed by the Sector 40 crime unit. Police said they were the ones who had stopped Pooja and Sagar with the intent of snatching the Creta.
The suspects are also allegedly involved in the murder of a youth, Gaurav, in the Shivaji Nagar area (on November 14) over “personal enmity”.
Police said the three were picked up from Dev Nagar in Bhondsi on Wednesday and produced in court on Thursday. Police have obtained their remand for further interrogation.
The biggest clue, said a police officer, was three men seen on multiple CCTV cameras near the crime scene riding a bike on the wrong side of the road around the time the Pooja was shot. They had returned to the spot where they shot Pooja a couple of hours later the same night, this time in a car, which has been seized. The registration number of both vehicles (motorcycle and car) are said to be fake.
“The three of them were doing rounds on their motorcycle with the intent of robbing someone. They spotted Pooja Sharma and her friend in the car and stopped them,” said ACP Preet Pal Sangwan, who headed the SIT.
He added they had gone back to the crime spot to see if Pooja was alive (Sagar had driven to the hospital and admitted Pooja).
Irshad and Jitender are residents of Balawa in Mahendergarh, while Hariom from Indergarh in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia. Irshad and Hariom were staying in Bhondsi while Jitender was living in Saraswati Enclave. Cops said after shooting Pooja, they checked newspapers to find out if the crime had been reported.