Gang targeting taxi drivers in city busted, 4 arrested

BHOPAL: Four youths from Rewa district have been arrested in connection with the murder of a city-based taxi driver at Rewa on July 20. However, kingpin of the gang is still on the run and police is trying to ascertain whether the same gang was involved in the murder of another taxi driver from Ashoka garden last month.
Superintendent of police (south) Anshuman Singh told reporters on Tuesday the accused were tracked through electronic surveillance.
As reported by TOI on July 21, police suspected it to be the gang that allegedly made travel bookings over telephone and once on the trip murdered drivers and fled with the vehicle. A similar incident was reported in wherein a taxi driver from Ashoka Garden was murdered near Sehore and his vehicle was stolen.
Singh said, Dharmendra Singh Patel, Vijay Choudhary, Pappu and Vipin Rawat were arrested for the murder of Tavera taxi driver, Sitaram, 35, a resident of Gehukheda in Kolar locality, who was missing since July 9. Key planner of the crime, Nagendra Singh Patel, a cousin of Dharmendra, is on the run, he added.
Accused, all around 20 were, nabbed from a village in Rewa district from where the body of Sitaram was recovered on July 20. They tried to mislead the police about their motive behind crime.
Accused Dharmendra, who was into small-time liquor trade in Rewa, told police he was stabbed by a person around two months ago. He wanted to take revenge and for the same he took idea from his cousin Nagendra- a driver based in Bhopal to steal a vehicle and run it over his enemy.
Nagendra told him to hire a taxi from here, take it to Rewa and take revenge. Singh said as per plan Dharmendra along with his three friends came to Bhopal by train, hired a taxi for Jabalpur and Rewa on fake identity with Nagendra's help and strangulated taxi driver between Sehore and Katni on July 9.
After murdering the driver, the accused were moving in Tavera vehicle when they met with an accident after which they abandoned the vehicle after taking out its registration number plate so that it could not be identified and returned to their homes.
Police said a team was camping in Rewa after the vehicle was recovered. Based on the leads developed in Bhopal, they picked up the accused and later recovered the body, which they had dumped in a gorge in Simaria area of Rewa district.
Police do not believe the motive of crime as told by accused and said they are trying to figure out exact motive of crime, which prima facie appears to loot the vehicle.
Earlier, on June 4, a taxi driver from Ashoka Garden area here, who took passengers in an Innova, was found murdered in the jungles of Sehore.