On Saturday night, the Masuri police apprehended two accused, namely, Mohammed Sonu and Uma Singh for the torture of three children and murder of a teenager and a woman at Saraswati Vihar locality in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.
As per reports, the victims have been identified as Dolly Thakur (32) and Anshu Kumari (16). Dolly, a resident of Saraswati Vihar, was at her house with her three children. Anshu, an Std IX student and a private tutor, was teaching the three children at the time of the incident. The accused Uma, who happens to be a distant relative of Dolly, had planned to rob the victim along with her boyfriend Mohammed Sonu.
The duo visited Dolly’s house at 8:30 pm on Saturday and engaged the victim in a conversation. After having tea, they bolted the doors from inside and overpowered Dolly at the gunpoint. Sonu then shot Dolly in her abdomen and the teenager Anshu in the head using a .32 calibre pistol. The accused then tried to kill a 5-year-old Rudra and his two nine-year-old sisters, namely, Gauri and Minakshi. However, Sonu’s gun got jammed and he instead resorted to brutal torture of the three children.
Case registered against the accused, one victim in a critical state
The culprit inflicted near-fatal injuries to the children with a screwdriver, followed by a grinding stone and a knife. Uma and Sonu then fled the crime scene, leaving them badly injured. Dolly’s husband Mahesh Thakur and her father-in-law returned home at 9:30 pm from work, only to find her dead and the three children in an injured state. They then registered a complaint at the Masuri police station. A seperate complaint was also registered by Dolly’s family.
A case was thus lodged by the cops against unidentified people under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 380 (theft), 394 (hurt caused during a robbery), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), and relevant sections of the Arms Act. The children were rushed to Yashoda Hospital in Nehru Nagar for medical treatment. Doctors informed that the 9-year-old Minakshi is in a critical state while Rudra and Gauri are stable.
Accused Uma arrested from her residence
SP (rural) Iraj Raja informed, “The most important clue was given by one of the two girls who told that ‘Amma’ (referring to Uma Singh) had visited the house. The children used to call the suspect woman with this name.” They also referred to Mohammed Sonu as ‘tailor uncle’.
Meanwhile, the police raided Uma’s house in Lal Quarter locality where she confessed to her crime. “Dolly was the granddaughter of my mother-in-law and her children called me ‘Amma’. We had been planning the robbery for long. Saturday night we went to Dolly’s house and also had tea there. Sonu later locked them in a room and he first shot dead the teenaged girl and then Dolly. Then, he picked up knife and grinding stone from the kitchen and hit the children,” she said in a video statement.
Cops nab Mohammed Sonu following an encounter
Unlike Uma, Mohammed Sonu had been planning to flee Ghaziabad. A total of five police teams were deployed to nab him. On Sunday, when he was spotted by the cops near Dasna, the accused open-fired at them. Sonu was injured in his leg, following a retaliatory fine by the police. The cops then recovered stolen cash, jewellery, a pistol and pressed charges against the two accused. The police said that the case would be fastracked and the testimonies of the children would be crucial in the case.
