CCTV footage recovered from the Gurugram hotel where former model Divya Pahuja was shot dead has helped the police piece together the sequence of events on the day of the murder. The footage shows Divya Pahuja at the reception with the hotel owner, Abhijeet Singh – who is the main accused in the case – early in the morning on Tuesday. Less than 20 hours later, her body can be seen dragged down a hotel corridor by two men.

The footage of the body being dragged is, incidentally, the last time it was seen. According to the police, the body was taken to Singh’s BMW, driven somewhere in the direction of Punjab and dumped. The police are yet to locate the body and have launched a massive hunt for it.

Pahuja was in jail for seven years for her alleged role in the fake encounter of her then boyfriend and Gurugram gangster Sandeep Gadoli in 2016. She had been granted bail in June last year.  

Footage from Hotel City Point’s reception, which has a timestamp of 4.18 am on Tuesday, shows Singh, Pahuja and another man walking in. Singh and the other person can be seen speaking to the receptionist while Pahuja stands behind them. After a couple of minutes, Singh and Pahuja walk further into the hotel while the other person says something to the receptionist, before heading in their direction.

The next video, said to be from around 10.45 pm, shows two men dragging Pahuja’s body, wrapped in a blanket, down a corridor of the hotel. One of the men is later seen walking back. Police said the body was carried to a blue BMW owned by Singh and disposed of. 

Blackmail Angle

Sources said Pahuja allegedly had some obscene videos of Singh on her phone which he asked her to delete, but she refused. The former model was allegedly blackmailing the hotel owner with the photos and this led to Singh and at least two of his aides shooting her. Pahuja’s family has vehemently denied this charge.

Singh and two of his alleged accomplices, Omprakash and Hemraj, have been arrested. Police are on the lookout for two or three other aides, who were allegedly paid Rs 10 lakh by Singh to dispose of Pahuja’s body. 

2016 Encounter

Pahuja was the alleged girlfriend of Gurugram’s most-wanted gangster Sandeep Gadoli, who was killed by the Haryana police in an encounter in a Mumbai hotel in 2016. The former model was in the hotel room with Gadoli when he was killed.

Several police officials were later arrested when it was alleged that the encounter was fake. Pahuja and her mother were also taken into custody for allegedly revealing the gangster’s whereabouts and facilitating the “fake encounter”.

Pahuja was in prison since 2016 and had been granted bail by the Bombay High Court in June last year.

The Jalandhar Police have solved the murder case of a police officer, who also an Arjuna awardee, within 48 hours using advanced technical method of investigation.

Police officer Dalbir Singh Deol, who was a weightlifter before he joined the force, was found dead with a bullet wound on his head on Wednesday.

The breakthrough came with the arrest of an autorickshaw driver, who shot the police officer after an argument over dropping him home.

Jugal Kishore, a police officer, saw the body near a canal while he was returning home from duty. Mr Kishore called his colleagues and soon started investigation.

The police looked at several CCTV cameras and in one of them saw that Deol had taken an autorickshaw. They noted the vehicle number and tracked down the vehicle meticulously looking at CCTVs on possible routes the three-wheeler may have taken.

The police also possibly checked mobile signals active in the canal area from the nearest tower.

The accused, identified as Vijay Kumar, shot Deol on his head after snatching his service pistol. The handgun was found near the body. 

“We found the Dalbir Singh Deol’s body under suspicious circumstances. The place where his body was found is 6-7 km from Jalandhar. We have arrested an autorickshaw driver, Vijay Kumar, in the case,” Jalandhar police chief Swapan Sharma said.

The driver refused to drop the police officer to his village, which led to a fight. Amid the argument, Vijay snatched the service pistol from Deol and fired on his head.

Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi’s first film together, Merry Christmas is set to release this month. The Sriram Raghavan directorial is a holiday-set mystery thriller. Ahead of the film’s release, the cast and crew got together for a press conference.

Opening up about working with Katrina Kaif Vijay Sethupathi said, “Katrina is someone I deeply admire. She’s a methodical actor who plans each scene. Even if she does not agree with your perspective, she listens attentively.”

When asked about his penchant for villainous or complex roles, Vijay jokingly said, “There’s no such thing. Everything is complex. Standing in front of the camera is always difficult. I enjoy doing villain roles so much. I can’t torture or kill anyone in real life. So when I get a chance to express it wholeheartedly.” 

He further added, “Expressions are like tasting food. I want to taste it all.”

Merry Christmas is set to release on January 12, 2024, in Hindi and Tamil.