Ghaziabad: A 30-year-old man facing probe in a Rs 1-crore cyber scam pushed his friend, and a co-accused in the case, off the Kashi Vishwanath Express in Ghaziabad while they were on the way to record their statements at CID office in Delhi from Pilibhit. The accused had allegedly used his friend’s identity and documents to open a bank account, where he received money linked to a cyber fraud in 2024.Devesh Kumar Gangwar (30), a resident of Pilibhit, was arrested on Sunday, four days after a Government Railway Police team recovered his friend Bharat Singh’s body from the rail tracks in Vijay Nagar.DCP (city) Dhawal Jaiswal said that during the investigation, a police team from Vijay Nagar found that Bharat had, on Sept 15, boarded a train from Bareilly with a friend to record his statement in a case in Delhi and subsequently detained Devesh.“Devesh told interrogators that he was scared that Bharat’s statement in the cyber fraud case might nail him and pushed him off the moving train as it reached Ghaziabad,” the DCP said. The accused, cops said, told the victim’s family that Bharat had got off at Ghaziabad railway station and would take an autorickshaw or other transport to reach home. Devesh later switched off his mobile phone and went back to his home.“After Bharat’s father identified the body and submitted a complaint, we arrested Devesh under BNS sections 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offenders) and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,” he said.In his complaint, Bharat’s father Jagdish Kumar stated that on Sept 9 morning, a CID crime branch team under officer Gaurav Kumar Yadav from Delhi had visited their house in Pilibhit and informed them that the 30-year-old was facing a probe in a cybercrime case. “The team questioned Bharat, searched the house and took his laptop. They later told us that Bharat’s photos, Aadhaar card and signatures were used to open a bank account under investigation for receiving Rs 1 crore in fraud transaction linked to a cyber scam,” Kumar said.He claimed that Bharat informed the team that he had shared the documents with his friend, Devesh, in 2024 so that they could start a business together. “Bharat had reason to believe that Devesh opened an account in his name but lied that the account could not be opened. Bharat also told the CID team that Devesh had not returned his papers or photograph,” he claimed.According to police, the CID team called Devesh to Bharat’s home the same day and questioned him. Devesh apparently told the cops that he could not open a bank account over some technicalities but claimed he had shared Bharat’s photograph and identity documents with a local property dealer, Hariom, a resident of Gohaniya village in Pilibhit.Devesh was asked to bring in Hariom, but he became incommunicado once he left the house. The CID team later searched Devesh’s house but could not find him there. The two were served a notice and summoned to CID’s Lodhi Road office on Sept 16 to record their statements in the cyber fraud case. Police did not share details of the cyber fraud case as it was under CID investigation.
