india

Updated: Jun 09, 2019 08:36 IST

A 25-year-old woman was shot in the face and thrown out of a Toyota Fortuner on Friday night, allegedly by the brother of her friend to whom she had lent around Rs 2.5 lakh, in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj.

The police said that the victim, an employee of a multinational company in Gurugram, was shot below her right eye.

She underwent a surgery at AIIMS Trauma Centre on Saturday and her condition is said to be stable, said a doctor. The police said that the suspect is on the run and efforts to arrest him are underway.

According to the police, a PCR call was received around 9pm on Friday reporting that a woman was found on the roadside with a gunshot injury in Vasant Kunj and has been rushed to Fortis Hospital. She was later referred to AIIMS Trauma Centre, where the bullet was removed in a three-hour long surgery, according to a senior doctor.

A police officer, who is probing the case but is not authorised to speak to the media, said when their team reached Fortis Hospital, four men, who had brought the woman to the hospital, told the police that they found the woman lying on the roadside with injuries on her face.

In her initial statement, the woman alleged that she was shot by one Rahul Singhal, who supplies water in Deoli area and is her school friend’s brother. Both the families live in Deoli. A preliminary probe revealed that the woman had lent around Rs 2.5 lakh to her school friend a few months ago and was now asking her to return the money,” the police officer said.

According to the police officer, the victim, in her statement, said that Singhal picked her up near her house in Deoli on Friday evening and assured her that he would return the money (which she had lent to his sister). “He said that he had to take his money back from someone in Rajokri and they drove towards Vasant Kunj, which is about 20km from Deoli. After reaching

there, the duo had an argument, during which, the woman said, Singhal took out a pistol and shot her. He then threw her out of his Fortuner SUV and fled,” the police officer said.

The officer said Singhal had switched off his mobile phone and his SUV was not at his house in Deoli when they raided it.

Joint commissioner of police (southern range) Devesh Srivastava said they had registered a case of attempt to murder under the Indian Penal Code Section 307 at Vasant Kunj south police station. “We have formed multiple teams and efforts to trace Rahul Singhal, who is on the run, are being made,” Srivastava said.

The injured woman’s father, who works with an airline in Delhi, said the families are known to each other and live close by. He said, “Singhal, who is the prime suspect in the case, is my daughter’s friend’s brother. Both the girls studied together in school and we live in the same neighbourhood. I don’t know if my daughter had lent about ₹2.5 lakh to any of them .”

“My daughter left the house around 6.45pm on Friday, informing us that she was going to a shopping mall with her friends. Around 8.50pm, we got a call from one of the four men who had taken my daughter to hospital. We rushed to the hospital and found her in critical state. She had to undergo a surgery on Saturday morning,” the father said.

He said that while Singhal runs a business that supplies water in Deoli. “We are thankful to the four men who saved my daughter’s life, but I appeal to the police to arrest the culprit as soon as possible,” the woman’s father said.