Three men from Uttar Pradesh, including two brothers, have been arrested in connection with the murder of a government doctor in Haridwar. The arrests were made following a police encounter on Tuesday night.
According to SP (City) Pankaj Gairola, the arrested individuals have been identified as Muddasir (40), Sameer (45), both brothers from Deoband, Saharanpur, and Ashraf (38), a resident of Ghaziabad. During the encounter, the two brothers were injured by bullets to their legs, while Ashraf surrendered. The trio had met Dr. Gopal Gupta, an emergency medical officer at the Haridwar district government hospital, at a liquor shop in Bahadrabad, where he had stopped after his bike ran out of petrol. Under the guise of helping him, the accused took Dr. Gupta to a secluded area, where they consumed alcohol, robbed, and eventually murdered him.
Muddasir has a criminal record in UP, and the group often targeted habitual drinkers for robbery. The police recovered Rs. 7,500, a mobile phone, a bike, and a watch from the suspects. Dr. Gupta, a resident of Laksar, Haridwar, was found dead near the Ganga canal under Bahadrabad police jurisdiction on January 31. The postmortem report confirmed that he was strangled.
A case was registered based on the complaint from Dr. Gupta’s parents, and the police began their investigation, which led to the arrest of the accused.