26-year-old waiter held for killing senior citizen

NEW DELHI: A 26-year-old waiter of a Karol Bagh hotel has been arrested for allegedly killing a senior citizen. Police said the accused, Sonu Singh, had planned to eliminate the entire family of his sister’s live-in partner. He was purportedly upset over the constant abuse and harassment meted out to his sister by her partner, Gladwin.
According to cops, Sonu first murdered Gladwin’s father, Herald Peter (63).He then started working as a waiter at a Karol Bagh hotel and was looking for an opportunity to wipe out the rest of the family. However, on July 2, he was arrested by the crime branch before he could execute the plan.
“A team led by DCP Dinesh K Gupta arrested Sonu Singh from the hotel in Karol Bagh where he had taken up a job. He admitted to have planned a second murder,” said joint CP (crime) Ravindra Yadav.
The incident took place in outer Delhi’s Vijay Vihar area on June 12. Peter was found dead in his bed with a cloth around his neck and an ice pick sticking out of his chest by his wife Premlata. She said the room was ransacked and with Rs 5,000 was missing from the locker. Peter earlier worked at a private company while Premlata is a nurse at St Stephen’s Hospital.
Gladwin and Sonu’s sister have been living together for the past couple of years. Sonu, who hails from Bihar’s West Champaran district, recently came to their house. He had come to Delhi looking for a job.
During interrogation, Sonu claimed he had seen Gladwin abusing his sister. The woman had also asked for money from her father to purchase a house in Delhi so that she could live separately. Days before the murder she left for her hometown with their children, cops said.
On June 12, Gladwin had gone for work and Sonu had a few drinks with Herald. The two got into an argument. Sonu picked up a piece of cloth lying in the bed and strangled Herald. He stabbed Peter with an ice pick to ensure that he had died.
Sonu then ransacked the house to make it look like a robbery and fled. Later, he landed a job at a three-star hotel in Karol Bagh. Cops said he had also planned to eliminate Gladwin and kept going back to Vijay Vihar to keep a watch on the family.
A case under sections 302 IPC (murder) and 394 IPC (robbery) has been registered against him.