NEW DELHI: The Gurugram Police confirmed the recovery of former model Divya Pahuja’s body from a canal in Haryana. The development follows the recent arrest of Balraj Gill, one of the accused in Pahuja’s murder, at Kolkata airport.
Pahuja, 27, was shot dead in a Gurugram hotel on January 2, allegedly due to her involvement in extorting money from the hotel owner, Abhijeet Singh, through blackmail with “obscene pictures.” The Gurugram Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime), Varun Kumar Dahiya, disclosed that Pahuja’s body was retrieved from the Bhakra canal’s subsidiary canal in Tohana, Haryana’s Fatehabad district.
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Balraj Gill, the arrested suspect, confessed during police interrogation that he disposed of Pahuja’s body in a canal in Patiala on January 3, a day after the alleged murder. The Gurugram Police initiated a search in the canal following Gill’s admission. The body was ultimately found after 11 days of investigation.
FLASH: Gurugram Police recovers the body of Divya Pahuja from Tohana Canal.
Divya was murdered under suspicious circumstances at a hotel in Gurugram on January 3.
Reports: @iAtulkrishan1#GurugramPolice #Divyapahuja pic.twitter.com/Yj03L0SQYi
— The New Indian (@TheNewIndian_in) January 13, 2024
Abhijeet Singh, the hotel owner and the main accused, was arrested earlier. He reportedly handed over the car containing Pahuja’s body to Gill near the hotel, with Gill later abandoning the vehicle at a bus stand in Patiala.
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Gurugram Crime Branch secures three-day transit remand from Kolkata court to bring Balraj back from Kolkata, where he was taken into custody at the airport. Another accused, Ravi Banga, is reportedly still at large. Pahuja’s murder is linked to her alleged possession of compromising videos of Abhijeet Singh, which she refused to delete, leading to accusations of blackmail. The family vehemently denies these charges.
The Gurugram Police had earlier located the BMW car used to transport Pahuja’s body at a bus stand in Patiala on January 5. Divya Pahuja had a tumultuous past, having spent seven years in jail for her alleged role in the fake encounter of her then-boyfriend, Gurugram gangster Sandeep Gadoli, in 2016. She was granted bail in June of the previous year.
