Divya Pahuja, her mother’s role in probe in Sandeep Gadoli ‘fake encounter’ case

Divya Pahuja, a 27-year-old former model, was allegedly murdered under suspicious circumstances at a hotel in Gurugram by Abhijeet Singh, who is the owner of City Point Hotel where the murder took place.

However, this is not the first time that Pahuja has made it into the media headlines. The ex-model was also incarcerated for seven years in connection with a case related to the alleged fake encounter of Gurugram gangster Sandeep Gadoli.

Encounter of Sandeep Gadoli

On February 7, 2016, a team of five policemen of Gurugram Police barged into a room of Mumbai’s Airport Metro Hotel where Gadoli was present along with his alleged girlfriend Divya Pahuja and shot him dead.

After the encounter, the police team had filed a complaint at a local police station stating that Gadoli fired upon them and in the retaliatory fire he sustained bullet injuries due to which he died.

Following the complaint, a case under the charges of attempt to murder was registered by the Mumbai Police. During the investigation, Divya concurred with the Gurugram Police’s version.

However, this turned out to be false during the Mumbai Police’s probe. Following the incident, Divya, then aged 20, and her mother Sonia were named in the FIR and were arrested under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2016.

Divya who was reportedly Gadoli’s girlfriend had accompanied him along with two women who were Kazakhstan nationals and two friends of Gadoli identified as Manish Khurana and Deepak Kapoor.

Gadoli’s family accused her of tipping off Gurugram Police
Divya’s role came under probe when the family members of Gadoli alleged that she was not his girlfriend and that the duo had met thrice in the past.

The family alleged that Divya was passing information to her mother Sonia at regular intervals, who shared the information with Gurugram Police and another gangster named Manoj Gujjar.

During the probe, Divya informed the investigators that Gadoli was not her boyfriend and was introduced to her as Rishabh by Manish Khurana. She decided to go on a trip to Goa with him as he promised that he would give her a flat in Gurgaon.

MUMBAI POLICE PROBE
During the investigation, the SIT team of Mumbai Police found that Gadoli was not armed and was not even in possession of any weapon. The probe also showed that the weapon that was recovered from him was planted by the accused policemen.

Divya’s role in the case was crucial as she was the one who allegedly gave the information regarding their location to her mother Sonia, who then passed it to Manoj Gujjar and then to Gurugram Police.

According to police sources, during the questioning of Sonia and Divya, the information they revealed matched the allegations levelled by Gadoli’s family members regarding the involvement of rival gangs and Gurugram Police in the killing of Gadoli.

Sonia had confessed that she had been passing information about the whereabouts and location of her daughter and Gadoli, sources added.

Gadoli’s murder was allegedly a result of a gang rivalry between the Gujjar gang and the Gadoli gang over a multi-crore land deal in Gurguram. Manoj Gujjar, brother of gangster Binder Gujjar, was allegedly close to some Gurugram police officials who were booked for Gadoli’s murder.

The police sources further added that Sonia informed the investigators that when she came to know that the person named Rishabh, with whom her daughter Divya was travelling was Sandeep Gadoli, when Divya had shown her a picture of him.

Sonia then shared the information with Manoj who then asked her to share information about Sandeep Gadoli’s movements and locations. He then allegedly passed information to accused police officials who were involved in the encounter of Gadoli.