HIGHLIGHTS
*The couple murdered the cab driver, dismembered the body and dumped it in a drain in Greater Noida
*The accused then drove his white Xcent cab to Moradabad and hid it in bushes near a temple
NEW DELHI: Many Delhiites may feel it’s unsafe to take a cab late at night. The danger, however, can be equally real for cabbies ferrying passengers in the late hours.
Cab driver Ram Govind became the latest victim of crime by passengers, when a couple allegedly murdered him, dismembered the body into three pieces and dumped it in a drain in Greater Noida.
The motive for the crime: Govind’s Hyundai Xcent cab, which the couple wanted to sell off in western UP, police officials said.
Almost a week after the cab driver went missing while on duty, the couple from Loni, Ghaziabad, was arrested for murdering him and taking the cab away to Moradabad.
Police said Govind had completed a trip from Madangir to Kapashera and was waiting idle in his car when he got a booking at 1am (on January 29) from the accused — Farhat Ali and Seema Sharma alias Aseeman — from MG Road in Gurgaon.
The duo wanted to go to their home in Ghaziabad.
On reaching there, they offered Govind some tea at their residence to “beat the chill”. He agreed. The brew was laced with sedatives and it soon knocked him out. As he lay unconscious, Ali strangled him with a rope, police said.
Cops said the couple left Govind’s body in their room and drove his white Xcent cab to Moradabad. They hid the vehicle in bushes near a temple and returned the next day to dispose of the body, still lying in their room.