delhi

Updated: Oct 21, 2017 22:50 IST

A fight over urinating on the roadside allegedly led to the murder of a 21-year-old labourer whose body was found at a weekly flea market in east Delhi’s Harsh Vihar on Thursday night, police said.

Three men – all of them labourers – were arrested on Friday for the murder. But the man who allegedly urinated in public, remains on the run.

Describing the sequence of events, AK Singla, DCP (north-east), said the victim, Sandeep, was siting outside his house on Wednesday evening when four youths passed by.

“One of them chose a spot near Sandeep to urinate, soiling Sandeep’s clothes,” said Singla, based on the interrogation of the arrested suspects.

“When Sandeep objected, they began fighting with him. In the scuffle that followed, Sandeep allegedly beat up some of those youths, forcing them to flee,” said Singla.

But the suspects, two of who live in the same neighbourhood, allegedly decided to take revenge on Sandeep, who too was a labourer. “On Thursday night, they spotted him bursting crackers outside his house. One of them took him to an isolated spot a few lanes away on some pretext,” said Singla.

They allegedly surrounded him and bludgeoned him to death with stones and even tried to crush his face. “One of them used an abandoned toilet seat to bash him,” said the DCP.

Sandeep’s body was found in Shukra Bazar in Harsh Vihar around 11.30 pm on Diwali night. Blood-stained stones and the toilet seat were found near the murder spot.

Police were able to quickly identify the victim as his brother happened to pass by the crime spot that night. Then began a probe to identify the killers and unearth the motive behind the crime.

Singla said the investigators got their first clue when Sandeep’s cousin brother recounted seeing a youth leading his brother towards the flea market. “When the CCTV footage on that route was scanned, the suspect was identified and nabbed. At his instance, two other suspects too were caught,” said the DCP.

Police disclosed the first names of the arrested accused as Raza, Sebu and Mukeem -- all in their early 20s. The main suspect who is untraceable has been identified as Chand.