Haldwani, February 12 Police arrested four accused in connection with the double-murder case on Thursday in Haldwani, in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, officials said.
The bodies of a young man and a young woman were found lying in the Galla Mandi area of the Mandi complex in the morning, with their heads having been crushed with stones.
Nainital Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Manjunath TC said here that, based on documents, the deceased were identified as 31-year-old Shubham Tamta, a resident of Almora, and 19-year-old Laxmi Pokhariya, a resident of Okhalkanda, Nainital.
He said that after the identification of the bodies, the police tracked down the accused through physical evidence of the incident, CCTV footage, and other means, and they were subsequently arrested. The accused have been identified as Gaurav Negi alias Akku Thakur (25), Saurabh Bhatt alias Bhatia (20), Deepu Sharma alias Dhruv (20), and Deepesh Latwal (25), all residents of Haldwani.
The SSP said that during interrogation, the accused revealed that they were drinking with Shubham and Lakshmi when one of the accused began to sexually harass Lakshmi, which Shubham resisted. They allegedly killed Shubham following an argument, and later killed Lakshmi to destroy the evidence. Subsequently, they allegedly crushed Shubham and Lakshmi's heads with stones to conceal their identities, the SSP said.
The SSP stated that the stone allegedly used in the murder, mobile phones, and blood-stained clothes belonging to Gaurav and Deepu Sharma have been recovered.
He stated that Gaurav and Deepu are both habitual criminals and have 11 and three previous cases registered against them, respectively.
