Agra: A cold storage business worth Rs 10 crore, a ransom amount of Rs 2 crore and an alleged Rs 40 lakh loan, incurred for IPL betting, were at the heart of the alleged kidnapping and murder of a 25-year-old by his five friends and acquaintances in Uttar Pradesh last week.
According to the investigation team, comprising Agra Police and the Agra STF, Sachin Chauhan, the only child of cold storage owner Suresh Chauhan and his wife Anita, was allegedly picked up in a white Creta from near his house in Agra district by the five accused around 4 p.m on 21 June.
One of the accused invited Sachin for a drink, and once he was inebriated, transported him to an abandoned water packaging plant, approximately three kilometres away from his house, the police claimed. They then allegedly choked him to death, by covering his face with lamination paper. Sachin, police claimed, struggled for about 30 minutes before passing away.
The accused then allegedly took his body in another car, a Maruti Omni, to the district’s Balkeshwar crematorium. Once there, police claimed, they dressed the body in a PPE suit and got him cremated as a Covid victim under an assumed identity — Ravi Verma. The accused then disposed of his ashes in the Yamuna to remove all evidence of the murder..
All five accused — Sumit Aswani, Happy Khanna, Manoj Bansal, Rinku and Harsh Chauhan — also residents of Agra, have been arrested and booked under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 364 A (kidnapping for ransom).
The police claimed that while the five had planned to make a ransom call for Rs 2 crore to Chauhan’s family, getting control of his father’s business and an alleged loan of Rs 40 lakh — that Chauhan had allegedly taken from one of the accused to fund his IPL betting and then refused to return — were other motives for the crime.
The victim, a BBA graduate, was to have been married in November this year.
Also read: Muzaffarpur to Mexico City — Lockdowns reduced urban crime by over a third around the globe
One murder, many motives
According to the Agra Police and STF, the conspiracy to kill Sachin was hatched about a month back by two of his friends — Harsh Chauhan and Sumit Aswani. The key conspirator was Harsh Chauhan, whose father Lekh Raj Singh Chauhan is an old friend and business partner of Sachin’s father, sources in the STF told ThePrint.
“The cold storage, owned by Sachin and Harsh’s father, is approximately worth Rs 10 crore. The two business partners are from the same village and have been friends for nearly 35 years,” a source in the STF said.
“The two families have been very close and Sachin and Harsh grew up together. Harsh addressed Sachin’s father as ‘chacha’. But he wanted to get rid of Sachin so he could be the sole heir and owner to the business and property.”
Both Sachin and Harsh had joined the family business in 2017.
The other conspirator, Sumit, had been known to both Sachin and Harsh, police said.
Sumit had allegedly lent a total of Rs 40 lakh to Sachin, which the latter used to bet on IPL matches. But he then allegedly refused to return the money which angered Sumit.
The two had a fight because of this last month, during which Sachin allegedly threatened Sumit that “itni goliyan thokunga ki sab bhul jayega (will pump so many bullets into you that you will forget everything)”. After this, police claimed, the two stopped talking to each other till 21 June, when Sumit made a WhatsApp call to Sachin, asking him to come over for a drink.
Before their differences, Harsh and Sachin had both frequented a sports club in Agra’s Dayalbagh area, owned by Sumit, police claimed. Among the other accused, Happy is Sumit’s cousin, and Rinku and Manoj are Sumit’s friends.
“Happy did odd jobs and owed Sumit about Rs 50,000. Manoj, who is married and has two kids also had a debt of around Rs 3 lakh — all in betting. Sumit had promised the two to take care of their debts if they helped him in the murder,” said STF inspector Uday Pratap Singh, who is among those investigating the case.
Although the accused always planned to kill Sachin, police claimed, they had also intended to get some ransom money from his parents with the false promise of returning him once the money was paid.
However, Manoj, who had been given the responsibility of making the ransom call to Sachin’s mother, couldn’t gather the courage to do so immediately after the murder, police claimed. On Sunday, Happy’s plan to make the call was foiled by the police, who arrested him while he was trying to buy a SIM card to make the call. The other four were arrested Monday.
Also read: Slain family, woman & lover on death row, boy born in jail — this Amroha home has a gory story
Technical evidence, forensics
According to the police, in a bid to mislead them, the accused had bought three PPE suits to disguise themselves before the cremation. But one of the suits was damaged and in their hurry to dispose of the body, they only managed to dress up Sachin in a PPE suit to pass him off as a Covid victim.
After the cremation, Manoj took Sachin’s phone to Etawah to mislead the police and Happy and Rinku immersed his ashes in the Yamuna.
Harsh, who is allegedly the main conspirator in the case, wasn’t present at the crime spot or the cremation ground. His role in the case was revealed by Sumit during interrogation, police said.
Even though Sachin’s body and remains were disposed of by the accused, the police have technical evidence — phone locations of the accused and the victim and CCTV footage of the medical store from where the PPE kits were bought. One of the accused had also provided his relative’s phone number as a contact at the shamshan ghat, which connects him to the crime.
Moreover, police said, Sachin’s ATM card and hair was also found at the crime spot and have been sent for forensic testing. According to the police, all five accused have confessed to their role in the kidnapping and murder.
Also read: UP village to Stanford University on 100% scholarship: How this Aligarh teen’s dream came true
Mother’s calls went unanswered
When Sachin did not return home on the night of 21 June, his parents got suspicious and filed a missing complaint on 22 June. While leaving home, after receiving Sumit’s call, Sachin had told his mother that he would be back home for dinner. But multiple calls to his mobile went unanswered.
“He said he was going for a walk and to meet some friends. I called him multiple times that evening. All but one of my calls went unanswered,” said Sachin’s mother Anita.
“Around 11 pm Manoj answered Sachin’s phone and told me that he was in Noida and was in no position to answer the call as he was drunk. “I knew something was wrong, but never thought that they would kill my son. If they wanted money, they could have asked us.”
Suresh Chauhan denied that his son had taken any money from Sumit.
“Where is the proof? My son was extremely intelligent and sincere. Even if they wanted money, Harsh is like our son, he could have told us. I would have sold everything to pay them. Instead, they have taken away our only son, what’s the point of living now?”
Sitting in their two-storey house in Agra, Anita holds on to one of Sachin’s shirts as she says, “Nothing but a speedy trial and the harshest of punishments for the accused will bring my son justice.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Subscribe to our channels on YouTube & Telegram
Why news media is in crisis & How you can fix it
India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.
But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or overseas, you can do it here.