New Delhi: Cornered by four men, then stabbed repeatedly with makeshift weapons in the open area of Jail No. 8 at Tihar — chilling visuals showing how gangster Sunil Balyan alias Tillu Tajpuriya was murdered at South Asia’s largest prison complex surfaced Thursday.
The purported CCTV footage of the 2 May killing raises questions about how the inmates managed to commit such a gruesome crime despite significant deployment of prison staff and other security arrangements. Tajpuriya’s attackers were identified as Yogesh Tonda, Deepak Titar, Rajesh Singh, and Riyaz Khan.
The footage, accessed by ThePrint, shows three inmates climbing down to the ground floor using a rope fashioned out of a bedsheet at around 6.10 am, according to the timestamp. Tajpuriya, dressed in black shorts and a red T-shirt, is seen running to his cell but is apprehended by the three inmates. As they begin to assault him, the fourth inmate arrives at the scene.
Tajpuriya is dragged out of the cell and into the open area. Even as a few other inmates try to intervene, the three repeatedly stab the gangster, while the fourth threatens others, injuring one.
According to sources in Tihar, the accused inmates cut through an iron mesh on the first floor to gain access to Tajpuriya’s floor. The entire incident took place within three to six minutes, they said.
Sources added that Tajpuriya’s aides Manjeet Mahal, Sonu Dariyapur and Pradeep Solanki attempted to come to his rescue but were threatened by the attackers at knife-point. Tajpuriya suffered around 90 stab wounds in the fatal attack, they claimed.
In a press statement Tuesday, the Director General (Prisons) office had said that Tajpuriya, who was lodged on the “ground floor of High Security Ward”, was attacked by four inmates “affiliated to the rival Gogi gang who were lodged on the first floor of the same ward”.
“They cut open the iron grill using improvised ‘sua’ (blade). They jumped on the ground floor using bed sheets. The injured inmate was immediately rushed to DDU Hospital after giving the required medical attention at the Central Jail OPD at around 6.45 am. The injured inmate expired during the course of the treatment at DDU hospital,” it added.
Gangster Jitender Gogi was shot dead inside Rohini court complex in September 2021, allegedly at Tajpuriya’s behest.
The gory killing inside Tihar comes just over two weeks after another inmate, gangster Prince Tewatia, was killed in Jail No. 3 of the prison complex by three inmates using sharp-edged objects.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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