KANPUR: A 30-year-old journalist working with a local Hindi newspaper was found strangled inside a car near CTI canal at Dharmendra Nagar of Barra area in the city on Saturday. Police claimed several cases, including loot, were pending against him.
“The family of the victim, Ashu Yadav, a resident of Khapra Mohal in Rail Bazar area, has claimed he was a scribe working with a local Hindi daily and left home after receiving a call on his mobile phone on December 31 night in a car,” SSP/DIG Preetinder Singh said on Saturday.
When he did not return home the next day, the family members registered a missing report with the Rail Bazar police, he added.
Yadav’s body was recovered from a car on Saturday afternoon with injury marks on his body parts including his face, besides serious strangulation marks on his neck, he said.
The body was found on the rear passenger seat of a car, which had stickers of a Hindi newspaper pasted on it, the police said.
The family have raised suspicion on a local resident of Rail Bazar, police said.
“As per the victim’s family members, Ashu had an enmity with a local resident of Khapra Mohal. Only recently, the latter over some issue had brutally attacked him with a blunt object causing injuries on his head. The local person had also threatened him with dire consequences. We have recorded the statements of the kin of the deceased. We are awaiting the postmortem report, but as of now the motive behind the murder is still unclear,” he added.
The SSP/DIG further said, “We are scanning the CCTV footage of the spot and the locality of the deceased. Also, we are in the process of procuring CDR (call detail record) to zero-in on the murderers. Going by the preliminary findings, it appears that the victim was murdered elsewhere and his body was transported in the car abandoned close to CTI canal in Dharmendra Nagar area of Barra.”
The body has been sent for post-mortem. Efforts are on to nab the culprits, he added.
Circle Officer, Govind Nagar, Vikas Pandey said, “There were nearly 10 cases including that of loot and SC/ST Act pending against him at Cantt and Rail Bazar police stations of the city.”