Main man in road rage murder held

Three days after a man was beaten to death in a road rage case in central Delhi, main accused Ameen Pehalwan was arrested on Wednesday.

With Pehalwan’s arrest, police have now nabbed all the five men who were allegedly involved in the attack on the victim in Turkman Gate on Sunday night. Police have also recovered the Hyundai i10 car in which the assailants were travelling at the time of the crime.

Victim Shahnawaz’s motorcycle had rammed into the car upon which a spat had ensued and soon it turned into a brutal attack on the motorcyclist. The first arrest in the case had been made on Monday in the form of one Waseem. Three other suspects, including Pehalwan’s son Shadab, were nabbed on Tuesday. Agencies report that a local court on Wednesday sent the three to 14 days in judicial custody. Waseem was already produced in the court on Tuesday and remanded into judicial custody.

Pehalwan’s custody is likely to be sought on Thursday. A man in his late 40s, Pehalwan has 17 cases pending against him. “There are cases of assault and harassment registered against him in the past too,” said a senior police officer after scanning his criminal records.
The other cases are related to rioting, robbery, and attempt to murder.

He has been to jail three times so far and entered construction business in 2010.
The officer said Pehalwan was looking to flee from Delhi in a bid to evade arrest when police nabbed him. Inputs from local sources helped track him, said the officer.

Pehalwan has been accused by the victim’s children of provoking his other four accomplices to launch the assault on Shahnawaz following the verbal tussle between the two groups on the fateful night.

Shahnawaz was murdered on a busy road even as his children watched in horror. They have alleged that their pleas for help from two beat policemen were ignored.
Senior officers said they are probing into this allegation, but no evidence of police’s presence at the crime spot at that time has emerged so far.