Ghaziabad: Two men have been arrested and a juvenile has been apprehended for strangling an 80-year-old man during a robbery attempt at his home in Loni Border on April 29.The victim, Ramesh Chandra Sharma, was found with his limbs tied and mouth gagged at his house in Utttranchal Vihar Colony. Police said he was assaulted first and then he was strangled. They said the murder was a result of a home invasion gone wrong.DCP (rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari said the arrested men are Anand Sharma, 30, and his nephew Priyanshu, 20. Anand’s daughter is the minor who has been taken into custody.Ramesh was a widower who lived with his two sons, Vikas and Gaurav. His elder son, Vikas, works in a loan consultancy firm, and Gaurav is employed at a private company in Chawri Bazar, Delhi.On Wednesday, Gaurav left for work as usual and Vikas left his father at home around 2.30pm as he had some errands in Delhi. When he returned at 7.30pm, he found the front door of the house was locked. Despite calling his father multiple times, he did not pick up the call. He went to the back of the house and found the door ajar. He found his father lying lifeless on the ground floor and the house ransacked. He filed a complaint at Loni Border police station and a case of murder was registered against unidentified people.There were no signs of forced entry into the house; this led the police to believe that the murderer knew Sharma well, and they thought the crime might have been due to personal enmity.Vikas earlier told police that none of the valuables had gone missing from the house. Police earlier dismissed the robbery angle. But he later found that a ring and a pair of anklets were missing. This led police to re-examine the theft angle.Investigators scoured through footage from CCTV cameras around the house and narrowed it down to a suspect named Anand. He was arrested after a brief gunfight on Friday. A country-made pistol and cartridges were found in his possession. BNS Section 109(1), attempt to murder, and Arms Act sections 3, 25 and 27 were added to the FIR.After a round of interrogation, police arrested Priyanshu and took his daughter into custody on Saturday. The missing items of jewellery were recovered from their possession. Police added BNS Section 317(2), which entails punishment for hiding stolen property, to the FIR against them.DCP Tiwari said the arrested men knew the Sharmas well, as Anand’s wife Rekha used to work at their house as a cook. Anand’s daughter had also worked for the family before being dismissed on suspicion of stealing Rs 2,000 from them. Rekha had allegedly pleaded with the Sharmas, but her position was never restored.Anand’s daughter reportedly told him that the family had a lot of valuables in the house, and so he made a plan with her and his nephew to loot the place. On April 29, the trio broke into the house to commit the theft but were caught by Ramesh. They reportedly overpowered him, tied him up with plastic ropes and beat him with sticks. They murdered him and fled through the back door.
