New Delhi: “You guys live off my money, you are all beggars”. The accused in the murder of Yash Mittal, a student of a university in Noida, have told the police that these words said by Mittal triggered a brawl resulting in his death Monday, ThePrint has learnt.
According to the police, the four accused and Mittal, the son of a well-to-do businessman, were friends. While three of them — Rachit, Shivam and Sushant — have been arrested, the fourth, Shubham, is on the run.
Mittal, a BA LLB student, had gone missing Monday, after which a missing persons complaint was lodged. His body was found buried in a pit in Amroha Thursday. An FIR has been lodged under Indian Penal Code section 302 (murder).
DCP (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan said that the accused initially tried to mislead the police and the family by demanding Rs 6 crore ransom and portraying the matter as a case of abduction.
“On 26 February, the accused called Yash Mittal to a field in Gajraula in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha (about 100 km away) for a party. The accused and the victim then began drinking. Soon, a brawl broke out, after which the accused killed Yash and buried his body in the field,” the DCP said.
Sources said that while the autopsy report is awaited, prima facie it appears that the accused “strangled” Mittal. His body was recovered Thursday.
According to sources, the accused and Mittal got drunk and started arguing. “During interrogation, the accused said that Yash abused them, called them beggars and said that they lived off him. The accused are 10-12 years older than Yash and only one of them is a student. Yash would pay for their parties,” a senior police officer said on the condition of anonymity.
According to the police, after allegedly killing Mittal Monday night, the accused started reaching out to his family with ransom messages.
Police teams scanned CCTV footage from the campus and checked call records. This led the investigators to question his friend Rachit, who then told them about the murder and also identified the location of the body, police said.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
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