On Wednesday, police said they had traced all the murders to a single killer – the 28-year-old leader of a carjacking gang who hunted for victims with five accomplices, among whom was his live-in partner. All five accused have been arrested and are now in the custody of the Jaipur and Gurugram police.
Police said they joined the dots after the arrest of Vishal Yogi, the prime suspect, in Jaipur on Tuesday while probing the murder on February 19 of Arjun, a cab driver whose body was found at the bottom of a pit off the Southern Peripheral Road at Badshapur in Gurugram.
Gang booked ride, stole cars after killing drivers
Since September last year, the gang has killed four drivers. Three of them drove cabs, while the fourth was an Ola Bike rider. The rider was shot in the head from the front in Jaipur, while the cabbies were shot in the head from behind inside their cabs in Gurugram,” said Adarsh Choudhary, additional DCP (crime), Jaipur police. “In all the cases, the bullet was fired by Vishal. The modus operandi was the same. Killing people was a casual thing for the gang,” Choudhary added.
The gang, which police said has been active in the Gurugram-Jaipur region for several years, booked the cars for trips and stole them after killing the drivers. Police are hoping to crack more cases with the arrest of Vishal, who was tracked down in a joint operation by cops from Gurugram and Jaipur using the GPS location of Arjun’s cab that the gang stole.
The other arrested gang members have been identified as Jeetu (19), Ravi Banjara (19), Vinod (21) Rahul (26) and Vishal’s live-in partner Rekha Rai (35). Police said Vishal and the others usually travelled to Delhi by bus from Jaipur whenever they planned to steal a cab. The investigation shows they hired the cabs whose drivers they killed from Mahipalpur (Feb 19), near Delhi’s IGI airport (Oct 5) and IFFCO Chowk in Gurugram (Sept 21). Vishal allegedly shot each driver in the head from the back seat when the cab reached a desolate area. The gang drove back to Jaipur in the stolen cabs. The Ola bike rider was killed on October 11.
In Jaipur, they used the cars for some other crimes they committed, which are still being probed, and then sold the vehicles to a scrap dealer, making tracing the vehicles difficult.
There was something different about the cab they stole on February 19, a Swift Dzire. Unlike the previous cars they had stolen after killing the drivers, Arjun’s car had a GPS device installed in it, which helped cops in Gurugram track the gang to Jaipur, where a raid led to Vishal’s arrest.
ACP (crime) Gurugram Preet Pal Sangwan said Vishal was arrested almost ten years ago for murder. “Till now, we have found details of eight FIRs lodged against Vishal in Rajasthan, Gurugram and Delhi. In 2013, Vishal was arrested in connection with a murder case. He was released on bail in 2018, after which he returned to crime and formed a gang. We hope to solve many other cases with his arrest,” the ACP said.
Rekha’s husband was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Delhi last year, according to inspector Lakhan Singh Khantana of Jaipur police. Vishal’s rile is being probed in this case too.