A couple has been arrested for allegedly robbing and killing an Uber taxi driver in Ghaziabad, IANS quoted a police official as saying on Monday. The two allegedly chopped up the body into three pieces and dumped it in a drain in Greater Noida.
The accused were identified as Farhat Ali, 34, and his 30-year-old partner Seema Sharma. Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijayanta Arya said the two were arrested on Sunday after CCTV footage established their presence around the car of the driver, who was identified as Ram Govind.
Both the accused are from Uttar Pradesh. They allegedly wanted to steal Govind’s car and sell it, the Hindustan Times reported.
The driver’s wife, who lives in East Delhi’s Shakarpur area, filed a missing complaint with the police on January 29. Two days later, a case of kidnapping was registered.
“During investigation, we found it was a blind case as there were no witnesses,” said Arya. “The last ride of the cab was booked from Madangir to Kapashera border and, thereafter, the GPS device was found to have stopped working.”
The police used technical surveillance to recover Govind’s mobile phone. Footage retrieved from CCTV cameras installed at Hapur toll plaza showed a man, accompanied by a woman, driving Govind’s car to Hapur, said Arya.
During interrogation, Ali and Sharma reportedly revealed that they had hired Govind’s car from MG Road to their rented accommodation in Ghaziabad. On the way, they allegedly conspired to rob him. So they took him to their home and offered him tea laced with sedatives before killing him, Arya said.
“Next day, they arranged a cutter and blades in order to cut the body into small pieces and wrapped it three separates bundles,” the police officer added. “They later thew them in a drain at Greater Noida.”
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