South Delhi shootout: GK-I gym shooting could be linked to illegal call centres

NEW DELHI: Businessman Nadir Shah's killing in Greater Kailash-I may be connected to a battle of supremacy over the operations of illegal call centres in the city, police suspect. Shah, sources said, had recently taken over the call centres owned by history sheeter Kunal Chhabra after the latter fled abroad. The development, besides a recent multi-crore transaction between the two, had irked gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Hashim Baba, who allegedly decided to bump Shah off.Searches were conducted at Mandoli Jail on Monday with prison officials examining the cells of Baba and three of his associates, sources said. They were informally questioned too. Special Cell will take Baba's remand on Tuesday and interrogate him in custody.Chhabra, who is named in three-four FIRs of Delhi Police's cyber cell and has a look-out circular issued against him, is learnt to have fled to Portugal via Dubai. Another player, codenmaed AJ, who is also in Dubai, is also under lens in the case. A look-out circular has been issued against him as well.Shah was gunned down by a group of men in south Delhi's GK-I on Thursday. The main shooters, who are said to be Baba's henchmen and residents of northeast Delhi, are still at large and raids are being conducted in four states to nab them, police said.A Special Cell team, comprising DCPs Manishi Chandra and Pratiksha Godara, is interrogating the suspects about their activities prior to the murder. Godara's men seems to have played an intuitive role in the case. They were not only present at the spot but also rushed Shah to the hospital, attempting to resuscitate him on the way. They, however, could not prevent the shooting, which has left the police brass dismayed.Two of the arrested men, Akash and Naveen, who were at the spot, have claimed that the shooters, Madhur and Raju, who were also seen in the CCTV camera footage firing at Shah — took the lead and even fled with the weapons after the shooting. The duo told police that they had mostly remained in the room that they had rented in Jamia Nagar, and Madhur and Raju joined them on the day of the incident. They reached the gym in GK-I in an autorickshaw and a two-wheeler.Shah was shot nine times and died on the spot. He was standing outside his car and talking to his friend, Dheeraj, when Madhur, Raju and others appeared there and fired indiscriminately. Dheeraj also got injured from splinters as he was standing right next to Shah. After the murder, the accused fled to Seelampur, changed clothes and went in different directions with the help of a man named Adil. Around midnight, a Facebook account in the name of Rohit Godara claimed responsibility for the murder. Godara, a close associate of Bishnoi, is either in Portugal or the US, and is orchestrating targeted killings from abroad.