Last Updated:
During interrogation, the accused gym trainer revealed that he had watched the Bollywood thriller Drishyam multiple times, in which the lead character buried a body at an under-construction police station site to avoid detection.
35-year-old Vimal Soni, who had been on the run since June, after killing his client, was arrested while attempting to contact his family. (Image: News18)
The Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police on Tuesday exhumed the body of a 32-year-old woman, four months after she was allegedly killed by her gym trainer, in what many are calling a “Drishyam-style” murder. The accused concealed the victim’s body within the Officer’s Club compound, adjacent to the District Magistrate’s residence in Kanpur, hoping that the upscale location would discourage a police search, just like the Ajay Devgn-starrer film’s plot.
The accused, 35-year-old Vimal Soni, who had been on the run since June, was arrested while attempting to contact his family. Following his arrest, the police after gathering information from him, exhumed the body of the victim from the Officer’s Club grounds. The woman has been identified as Ekta Gupta, wife of a prominent businessman.
During interrogation, the accused gym trainer revealed that he had watched the Bollywood thriller Drishyam multiple times, in which the lead character buried a body at an under-construction police station site to avoid detection. Inspired by this plot, he chose to bury the woman’s body in a high-profile area, thinking it would evade police scrutiny. He also disclosed that, to further avoid arrest, he had disposed of his SIM cards and refrained from any financial transactions — tactics he claimed to have learned from the film.
“The accused, Vimal Soni, and the victim, Ekta Gupta, were in a relationship. The woman was allegedly upset over the man’s wedding getting finalised. On the day of the crime, she had come to the gym after 20 days, and the duo had gone into the car to have a conversation. An argument ensued during which he punched her in the neck, following which she fainted. He then murdered her,” said Shravan Kumar Singh, DCP North Kanpur.
Vimal and Ekta’s Relationship
Vimal Soni, a well-known gym trainer in Kanpur’s Green Park gym, regularly trained senior officers and their families, giving him easy access to government grounds and officer residences. According to police, Ekta Gupta, a 32-year-old businessman’s wife, joined the gym in March 2023, dedicated to improving her health. She and Vimal began interacting closely over time.
Vimal told police, “On Ekta’s insistence, I started training her in the gym. It was in April that Ekta Gupta and I started talking. She would call me multiple times daily to discuss health matters. Soon, we began meeting outside the gym, often taking walks in the evening.”
As Vimal’s family started arranging his marriage, tensions between him and Ekta escalated. “Whenever I used to talk to her about my marriage, she would get angry. Then we would not talk for many days. I would convince her by cajoling her,” he told police. However things went worse after his tilak ceremony in June and Ekta became even more disturbed and was pressuring Vimal to reconsider his marriage plans, said police. However, Vimal felt bound to his family’s decision and repeatedly tried to distance himself from her.
The Day of the Crime
On June 24, Ekta arrived at the gym after a 20-day absence and went straight to Vimal’s car, where an argument quickly broke out. “I tried to reason with her, but she started screaming loudly,” Vimal told police. He said in a bid to silence her, he punched her near the neck, unintentionally causing her to faint. “I thought she would regain consciousness in some time, but she had died. I got scared. I started thinking about where to dispose the body,” Vimal told police.
The Drishyam angle
This reminded him of Drishyam, where the lead actor dumped the body at an under-construction police station site in order to avoid police search. In the interrogation, Vimal told police that since he was familiar with the Kanpur DM’s residence compound and the neighbouring posh area, he thought of dumping the body at the location in order to avoid police search. “I placed Ekta’s body in the back seat of the car and obtained a shovel. Driving into the DM compound, I parked my car without arousing suspicion since I was a frequent visitor to the area and under the cover of darkness, I dug a pit approximately five feet deep and two and a half feet wide and buried Ekta’s body,” the accused confessed during the interrogation.
He also admitted the fact that after disposing of Ekta’s body, he broke Ekta’s phone and his phone, which he had seen in the movie in order to evade police arrests.
Attempted suicide
After disposing off Ekta’s body, Vimal Soni confessed to police that he even attempted suicide out of guilt. “I was scared. I went straight to Ganga Barrage, tried to commit suicide twice there. But I got scared,” Soni admitted. He then went to Bada Chauraha and contacted his nephew, requesting a change of clothes. After receiving the clothes, he continued his escape by heading to Jhankarkati, where he boarded a bus to flee the city.
Vimal’s arrest
DCP Shravan Kumar detailed the challenges police faced in tracking down Vimal Soni, who avoided detection by refraining from using his phone or making financial transactions. After months of eluding capture, Vimal eventually contacted his family, leading to his arrest in connection with Ekta Gupta’s murder, who had last visited the gym on the premises of the Green Park Stadium on June 24 and was missing since then.
Her husband had lodged an FIR against Vimal in this connection. “Several teams were dispatched to Delhi, Pune, Agra, Gwalior, and Punjab. Vimal was traced to Mahoba and later to Punjab, where he worked in a hotel, and used to maintain minimal interaction with staff,” said Kumar.
The police coordinated with his family, enabling them to pinpoint his location.
Initially, Vimal claimed he disposed off Ekta Gupta’s body in the Ganga but later confessed to burying it at the Officer’s Club premises, adjacent to the District Magistrate’s residence on VIP Road. Forensic teams, under the supervision of Joint Commissioner of Police Harish Chander, excavated the site and recovered the body. Vimal admitted he chose the location, believing it was unlikely the police would search near the DM’s bungalow.
Source link
[ad_3]
