Afraid He Would 'Sacrifice' Them To Get Rich, 3 Men Kill Friend In Ghaziabad

In a bizarre murder in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, three friends killed a man with a gas cylinder and then set his body ablaze because they were afraid he would 'sacrifice' one of them to get rich, as suggested by an occultist. 

Police said 35-year-old auto rickshaw driver Naveen aka Nandu used to visit the occultist in Delhi fairly often and, on Tuesday, had taken three of his auto rickshaw-driver friends, Pawan, Sagar and Naseem, with him. During their session, the friends overheard the occultist telling Nandu that he could become very rich, very quickly, if he killed someone close to him as a 'sacrifice'. Nandu then asked if killing a friend would count, and the occultist answered in the affirmative.

Later that evening, the four friends were drinking at Sagar's house when an argument broke out among them over what the occultist had told Nandu. Fearing that he intended to act on the advice, the three friends hit Nandu on the head and his back with a gas cylinder, killing him on the spot. 

The three men then wrapped Nandu's body in a blanket, placed it in his auto rickshaw and drove to a deserted part of Ghaziabad, under the Tronica police station limits. Once there, they poured fuel on the auto and Nandu's body and set them ablaze.

The charred body was discovered on Wednesday and a first information report (FIR) was registered.

"Multiple teams were formed to investigate the case and, based on technical surveillance and human intelligence inputs, we found out that Nandu had been drinking with the three friends on the night of the killing. All three went on the run after the murder. Sagar and Pawan have been arrested, and Naseem will be taken into custody soon," said Assistant Commissioner of Police Siddhartha Gautam.

(Winh inputs from Pintu Tomar)