They were remanded in custody

The chilling murder of a young toll tax attendant on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway this past week has reportedly been cracked by the Haryana Police with the arrest of a young man and his friend at Khoh village here. They have been identified as Vijay Veer Yadav (28), who allegedly fired the shot, and his friend Manjeet (34).

Vijay was returning home in his white Bolero jeep in the early hours of September 23 when he got into an altercation with Umesh Kumar Pandey, who was manning Lane No. 11 on the toll plaza, over exemption of toll fee. Vijay allegedly pulled out a firearm and shot Umesh in the neck. The victim died on the way to hospital.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Gurgaon-East) Maheshwar Dayal, some time after the incident, Vijay asked Manjeet to go to the toll plaza and inquire about the condition of the attendant. Manjeet was captured by a closed-circuit television camera making inquiries at the counter.

“While scrutinising the footage of various booths at the plaza since the occurrence of the crime, we zeroed in on him as the suspect. The breakthrough came when his photograph was identified by some villagers and he was arrested on Monday around 4 a.m. It led to the arrest of prime accused Vijay,” he added.

Vijay had an altercation with the toll tax attendant when the latter did not allow him to go on production of a photocopy of the licence and insisted on the original registration certificate of the vehicle.

Vijay, who purportedly was drunk, flew into a rage and allegedly shot Umesh from close range.

The weapon used in the crime is yet to be recovered. “The shot was probably fired from a country-made pistol. Efforts are on to trace the weapon. The matter is under investigation and more people could be arrested,” said Mr. Dayal.

The vehicle in question is registered in the name of Ashok Kumar of Shivaji Park in Gurgaon.

Vijay knew Manjeet, a resident of Shikohpur village in Gurgaon, as he was a regular at the latter's gymnasium.

Following the incident, Vijay also changed some outer accessories of the Bolero to evade detection.

“The CCTV footage of the vehicle showed that it had a peculiar roof-rail which is uncommon for Boleros and the left front headlight of the vehicle was not working. But the accused removed the roof rail and got the headlight repair to avoid detection,” said Mr. Dayal.

During the course of investigation, 15 teams were constituted to verify the involvement of all 350 white Baleros registered in Gurgaon this year and another 17 teams were tasked with visiting all 35 toll-exempted villages and making enquiries about the vehicle and the assailant. Three separate teams went round Old Gurgaon making enquiries at car accessories shops and 12 teams made enquiries at liquor shops.