For contract killers in capital, human life is worth just Rs 5,000

They are young, fearless and eager to make their name in the world of crime by killing for money. After a spate of contract killings in the city during the past few months, the Delhi police is worried about the emergence of a new crop of hyper-local contract killers, waiting for an “assignment” to prove their mettle. For conspirators too, it is an easy bargain for these boys charge as little as Rs 5,000 to take a life.

For the murder of NDMC legal adviser M.M. Khan, the contract killers had taken up the task for just Rs 2 lakh. They had only got Rs 50,000 in advance from the conspirator. Mr Khan was shot dead on May 18.

On March 31, four contract killers murdered a builder in north Delhi’s Ballimaran area. The task was fixed for Rs 1 lakh and only Rs 30,000 were paid as an advance.

How the network operates The conspirator first gets introduced to a local criminal, involved in petty crimes in his respective area. The local criminal then introduces the conspirator to his boss. The high-profile criminals generally avoid contract killings as they are mainly into extortion. They hire contract killers in case businessmen refuse to pay them. Acting as middlemen, they help the conspirator by introducing them to a contract killer directly and fix the deal.

“Contract killers are the ones who kill people without knowing the person and motive of the murder. They are experienced and know where to hit the target to ensure death. It is responsibility of the middlemen to arrange vehicle and arms for the killers. The conspirator has to pay more for vehicle, arms and liquor bottles. If any high-profile person is killed, the killers get more acknowledgement in their fraternity,” said a police official.

In the M.M. Khan murder case, the conspirator initially approached a criminal who coincidentally was also a police informer, to execute the task. However, the task was to be executed in Jamia Nagar. As such, he suggested to the conspirator to assign the task to a local criminal because no outsider would undertake the work in Jamia Nagar.

“Jamia Nagar is a very congested area, and the conspirators felt that they needed some locals to carry out the murder and escape without getting caught. So, killers had to be local residents,” said a police official. “Then the hotelier approached a local criminal who had been booked by the police for petty crimes. He took the task and assigned two youth to accomplish it for Rs 2 lakh,” the official said.

How weapons and vehicles are arranged The middleman has to arrange weapons to be used for a contract killing. Weapons mostly are smuggled from Munger in Bihar and Khargone, Barwani and Khandwa near Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border. The plan is discussed in advance, including how many rounds of bullets would be fired, and the type of vehicles to be used in the crime. The vehicles are arranged from autolifters. A police official said that a decade ago, most sharpshooters used to be from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but nowadays local or macro-level shooters are preferred as they are aware of the geography and other local inputs about the target. “Socio-economic reasons draw youth to crime. After stepping into the crime world, a shooter wants to develop his name in order to get placement in famous gangs,” said a senior police official.

New trends According to the police, contract killing has changed a lot in the last decade. Contract killers are now armed with automatic weapons and drive luxury cars. “Recently, we recovered a 9 mm Taurus automatic pistol worth Rs 30 lakh. The weapon had been procured from Brazil. Another .455 bore pistol used by US forces was among weapons seized from two gangsters,” said the police officer.