Haryana model out on bail in an encounter case shot dead in Gurugram, three held

New Delhi, January 4

The Gurugram Police arrested three persons including the owner of a hotel for allegedly killing model Divya Pahuja inside the Gurugram hotel. 

The Gurugram police arrested owner of the City Point Hotel, Abhijeet Singh (56), a resident of Hisar. The other two arrested in the case are Hemraj, a 28-year-old man from Nepal, and Omprakash, a 23-year-old from Juranti village, Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal. Both worked at City Point Hotel in the cleaning department and the reception, respectively.

Divya Pahuja (27) was out on bail. Her body has not been recovered yet and police are looking for two more accomplices of Singh who are suspected to have been tasked with disposing of the body.

Pahuja was arrested in 2016 for allegedly providing information to Haryana Police on the whereabouts of gangster Sandeep Gadoli following which he was killed in an alleged fake encounter at a Mumbai hotel. 

The Gurugram Crime Branch stated that after his arrested Singh revelaed that Pahuja was in possession of a few objectionable pictures of him on the basis of which she had been extorting him. 

The model's family filed a complaint with police informing that she had gone to meet Singh on January 2 following which her phone was unreachable.

The police teams rushed to the hotel and checked the CCTV footage.One footage showed two men purportedly carrying a body wrapped in a blanket in night hours. 

Pahuja’s sister Naina alleged that she suspected Gadoli’s sister to have paid Singh off to murder her. Her sister also went to the hotel and saw Pahuja’s belongings, such as her debit and PAN cards, shoes and a ring in the room where she was staying.

According to the police, Pahuja had allegedly demanded a substantial amount from Singh and the latter had called her to his hotel to convince her to delete his photos from her phone. When Pahuja refused to disclose her phone’s password, Singh shot her. With the help of his staff, Pahuja’s body was put in his BMW car to dispose off the body. 

Pahuja was arrested on July 14, 2016 along with her mother Sonia and officials of Haryana Police who were accused of killing Gadoli in a fake encounter at a Mumbai hotel. She was granted bail by the Mumbai High Court in June last year.