Ex-Model Divya Pahuja's Body Recovered From Haryana Canal 11 Days After Hotel Murder

New Delhi: Police have found the body of former model Divya Pauja, who was killed at a hotel in Gurugram on January 2, in a canal in Haryana’s Fatehabad district on Saturday, news agency IANS reported. The body was in a decomposed state when it was recovered from the Bhakra canal in Tohana, said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Varun Dahiya. Divya was shot dead by Abhijeet Singh, the owner of the City Point Hotel near the Gurugram bus stand, where she was staying in room number 111.

The police said that Abhijeet and Divya were in a relationship and he killed her in a fit of rage after she refused to erase some of his compromising photos from her phone.

Abhijeet’s friends, Balraj Gill from Sector-5, Panchkula, and Ravi Banga from Gurudwara Road Model Town, Hisar, are believed to have disposed of Divya’s body. The police have arrested five people in connection with the murder – Abhijeet, his associates Om Prakash, Hemraj, Balraj and a woman named Megha. Ravi Banga is still on the run.

Megha had assisted Abhijeet in getting rid of the murder weapon, the documents and other personal items of the victim. Om Prakash and Hemraj had helped Abhijeet lift Divya’s body and put it in the trunk of a BMW car.

Balraj and Ravi then drove away with the body. Megha told the police that she saw Divya’s body when she arrived at the hotel on January 2. Abhijeet asked her to throw away the belongings of the dead woman, but she was too afraid to do so, sources said.

The police have seized the BMW car that was used to transport the body to Patiala. Abhijeet told the police during interrogation that Divya used to extort money from him and blackmail him.

Divya had met Abhijeet through Binder Gujjar, a gangster who is in jail for allegedly masterminding the “fake encounter” of another gangster, Sandeep Gadoli, with the help of the Gurugram Police, in Mumbai in 2016.

Divya was the main accused in the case. She was arrested for the murder of Gadoli and spent seven years in prison. She got bail from the Bombay High Court in June last year. Divya’s family has claimed that Abhijeet and Gadoli’s family members plotted her murder.