Ghaziabad: A 22-year-old man was stabbed to death by his friends at a birthday party in the Shanti Nagar area of Crossings Republik in what is believed to be the third attempt to kill him, police said.An FIR was registered against six persons, an officer said, three of whom — Gaurav, Dev and Hari — were detained.The deceased, Mohit Sharma, was an autorickshaw driver. According to Mohit’s elder brother, Mohit and Gaurav had a dispute about two weeks ago after which Gaurav threatened to kill him. However, a compromise was reached between them and Mohit’s family believed the matter was resolved, he said.“But on June 25, all of the accused took my brother to Rajasthan’s Khatushyam town and there, the dispute between them flared up again. Fearing an attack, Mohit made a video call to his cousin and told him that he was with his friends and they would be responsible if something untoward happened to him,” Mohit’s brother told TOI.A similar incident happened a few days later when the accused took Mohit to Haridwar and the latter made a phone call to his cousin to let him know his whereabouts and who he was there with, he added“I suspect the accused had planned to kill my brother in Haridwar and Khatushyam but they did not make an attempt because of the video calls,” Mohit’s brother said.Around 11.30pm on Wednesday, Dev called Mohit to his house — only 100 metres away — for his birthday party. There, Dev, Gaurav and Hari forced him to drink a large amount of alcohol after which he fell unconscious. Following this, the accused stabbed him more than five times.Mohit managed to escape Dev’s house and call his family. His family rushed him to a hospital where doctors declared him dead.The murder triggered major outrage in the area and relatives of the deceased blocked the Vijaynagar bypass near the Delhi-Meerut Expressway for 35 minutes. The protesters demanded strict punishment for the accused. It was only after ACP (Indirapuram) Abhishek Srivastava and ACP (Wave City) Priyashripal reached the spot and assured action that the blockade was lifted.However, after dispersing from the expressway, the crowd reached Dev’s house and vandalised the room in which the incident took place. Station in-charges of Vijaynagar, Nagar Kotwali, Kavinagar, Crossings Republik, Nandgram and Sihani Gate police stations reached the spot to pacify the crowd. Later, the tenants in Dev’s residence were asked to leave and police sealed the house.ACP (Wave City) said police are trying to identify the three other accused in the case and are examining CCTV cameras nearby to determine the exact sequence of the events leading up to the murder.
