Ghaziabad, Aug 16 (IANS) A 26-year-old former nightclub bouncer and his girlfriend were Tuesday arrested for allegedly murdering an elderly man inside a park in Indirapuram.


Rahul Kumar, a bouncer at Black discotheque in Pacific Mall and his girlfriend Himani Mehra alias Julie, 20, a hotel management graduate, were arrested for murdering retired LIC employee Shyam Nandan, 65, in the Swarna Jayanti Park in Indirapuram, police said.

Nandan had gone to the park along with his four-year-old grandson on Aug 11 to take a stroll after dinner where he was stabbed by two people. The police had then said that Nandan had objected to the couple, who were in an intimate position.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police Raghubir Lal, the woman, after completing her B.Sc. in Hotel Management from a college in Delhi started working as an executive at a Tour & Travels firm in Laxmi Nagar.

"She was employed with the travel firm for last nearly one and half years. Around a year back, she came in contact with Shyam Nandan, who visited the office often to get his bookings done," he said.

"The two came close to each other and started contacting each other on regular basis. Few months back, Himani was diagnosed with a stone in kidney and needed money for operation. As she did not have the money, she took Rs.50,000 from Shyam Nandan with the promise of returning it back, soon," Lal said.

"However, Himani did not return the amount for which he started insisting frequently. He also made sexual advances towards her," he said.

"He would call me to the park to meet him and often wanted sexual favours from me. He was a womanizer. Many times, he introduced me to several other young girls with whom he was friendly and perhaps also going around with them," said Himani Mehra.

"I was cautious and did not meet him alone in a room or at a secluded place except conceding to his demands of meeting in parks," she added.

"For the past few days, he was pressurizing me to return his money and was getting aggressive," Himani said.

For the past two years, Himani was also having an affair with Rahul. As both of them belonged to the same locality in Daurala and were working close to each other in Laxmi Nagar and Pacific Mall, they developed an affair. Himani and Rahul had been staying together in a rented room at Anand Vihar for the last two years, police said.

Rahul had left his job as a bouncer in Black about two months back.

Fed up of Shyam Nandan’s calls for money, the couple hatched a plan to eliminate him. On Aug 11, Himani called him to Swarna Jayanti Park in the evening and was accompanied by her boyfriend.

While Himani sat in one corner, Rahul sat in another. When Shyam Nandan came in the evening with his grandson, she tried to beg for more time to return the money to which he reportedly did not agree.

According to Himani, Shyam Nandan asked her to return the amount or “be his wife for five years”. Rahul reached the spot and picked up a knife, used for cutting vegetables. The knife was with Himani in her tool-kit box, which she kept regularly since her hotel management days.

Rahul stabbed Shyam Nandan multiple times after which he collapsed and died on the spot. While Himani swiftly escaped from Gate no 1, Rahul came to the main gate to get his bike. When the parking contractor Ajay asked him for the parking slip, he hit his head with a helmet and fled after leaving his bike.

After committing the crime, both Rahul and Himani had fled to Haridwar, the SSP said.