NEW DELHI, Jan 13 (Agencies): More than 10 days after she was shot dead in a Gurugram hotel, former model Divya Pahuja’s body was found in Bhakra canal in Haryana’s Tohana on Saturday. The Gurgaon police said the body had been disposed of in the canal in Punjab’s Moonak area.
Pahuja, 27, was murdered on January 2, over five months after she was released on bail in connection with the alleged fake encounter of a Haryana-based gangster in a Mumbai hotel room in 2016.
According to the police, the search for the body had been going on for over a week but it intensified after accused Balraj Gill, a lawyer at the Punjab and Haryana High Court who was caught on Thursday, revealed that it had been disposed of in Bhakra canal.
“On Friday, we got the input that the body was disposed of in Bhakra canal in Moonak. Teams were deployed in various parts of the canals as the body was expected to float from Moonak to other regions due to the flow of the water,” Gurgaon Police spokesperson Subhash Boken said.
“We were informed by the local teams that the body was found around 10 am on Saturday and they are still recovering the body from the canal. It was an extensive operation stretching over 150-200 km of area as we routed each district and canal flow and deployed several teams in each region through which the canal flows,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Varun Dahiya. He added that the body will be sent to Fatehabad for postmortem.
Shamser Singh, DSP Tohana, said that the family of the victim has been informed about it. “Gurgaon Police’s crime team, NDRF and a team from Tohana are at the site to recover the body. We identified her by the tattoo on her right shoulder,” the DSP added.
According to police, during the investigation, it was found that Gill, a resident of Panchkula Sector 5, and Ravi Banga, a resident of Gurudwara Road, Model Town in Hisar, were involved in Pahuja’s murder. The main accused Abhijeet Singh had directed Gill and Banga to dispose of the body, the police added.
Five people have been arrested in the case so far – Singh, the owner of City Point Hotel in Sector 14 where Pahuja was killed; hotel staff Omprakash and Hemraj, who allegedly helped Singh move the body; Megha, who allegedly helped Singh dispose of the body; and Gill, who was caught at Kolkata airport on Thursday evening.