New Delhi: Nearly two weeks after 19-year-old Aryan Mishra was shot dead in Haryana’s Palwal after being chased for 30 kilometres by cow vigilantes, police are still trying to unravel the murky details of the case.
It wasn’t just Aryan in the red Renault Duster on the night of 24 August. The four others—Harshit Gulati behind the wheel; his elder brother Shankey; their mother Sujata; and her friend Kirti Sharma—were shaken but unhurt in the incident.
And on 29 August, Shankey was arrested for his alleged involvement in a murder that took place nearly a fortnight before.
As police try to figure out what led to the events of 24 August, multiple questions remain unanswered: why was Shankey in the car? What were Sujata and her friend Kriti doing in the Renault Duster? Why did Harshit invite Aryan to join them in the middle of the night?
To be sure, police said they have not found any evidence of a connection between the Gulatis and the cow vigilantes.
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How the events unfolded
On the night of 24 August, at around 1:20 am, Aryan received a call on his mother’s phone from Harshit, his friend and the son of their landlord in Sector 21, Faridabad. Within five minutes, he left, promising to be back soon. “For the first time, Aryan didn’t take his phone along and said, ‘Mumma, I’ll be back in 5 minutes’,” said Uma Mishra, Aryan’s mother.
But Aryan didn’t return. Instead, a few hours later, Harshit’s father came knocking on the door. He told Aryan’s father, Siyanand Mishra, that his son was in trouble. The next thing Siyanand saw was Aryan lying on a stretcher at SSB hospital, drenched in blood.
The police had arrived, and Sujata was narrating the incident to them. However, police suspect she was not telling the truth and instead covering for her son, Shankey.
“The initial evidence presented to us didn’t corroborate with the story, so we used CCTV cameras to trace the vehicle, and that’s how we caught the culprits,” said Aman Yadav, the Assistant Commissioner of Police-Crime (Faridabad).
Police arrested notorious cow vigilante Anil Kaushik, locally known as the ‘Monu Manesar of Faridabad’, and four others.
“However, our investigation has not found any relationship between the people arrested and those travelling with Aryan Mishra in the car. We are still investigating the matter,” Yadav added.
Shankey accused in attempted murder case
According to the police, Shankey is accused in an “attempt to murder” case linked to a property dispute between his family and another family, the Kapoors of Sector 1. A man was attacked on 15 August and Shankey was allegedly involved in the conspiracy, they said, without giving details of the case. Police had been looking for Shankey around the time of Aryan’s death. Five days later, he was arrested near NIT Faridabad.
“Yes, Shankey was present in the car and was later arrested on August 29. He had been absconding for a while, and the police had been searching for him,” said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.
After Aryan’s death, the Gulati family misled the police. They claimed that men from the Kapoor family had killed the 19-year-old.
According to the police, when the car with Aryan, Harshit, and the others were returning to Sector 21, they saw a white Swift with blue and red lights on the bonnet, leading them to believe that the police were there to arrest Shankey. Harshit sped up the car.
Meanwhile, Anil Kaushik and others had received information that an SUV was smuggling cows to Palwal. They spotted the car with Aryan and began to give it a chase.
This led to Aryan being shot in the head and right shoulder near the Gadpuri toll plaza on NH-19 in Haryana’s Palwal district, after being chased by the accused for about 50 km.
“The case is complicated. There is an issue of personal rivalry within the Gulati family and the involvement of cow vigilantes. We are investigating everything to get closer to the truth,” said a senior police official.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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