Delivery Man Murdered for Rs 11,999 Chinese Smartphone 

A Flipkart delivery man was murdered for a Chinese phone as the customer who had ordered it did not have money to pay for it.

According to a report in Times of India, 22-year-old gym trainer K Varun Kumar allegedly slit the throat of twenty-nine-year-old Nanjunda Swamy's throat as he did not have Rs 11,999 for the Redmi Note 3 that he ordered online.

The body of the victim was found in the lift shaft of a building in Vijayanagar where he had gone to deliver the smartphone, the report stated.

According to police, after slitting the victim’s throat, Varun watched him bleed to death. He dumped the body in the lift shaft only after about 10 hours

Since all his friends and clients had mobile phones, Varun was badly in need of a phone after having joined the gym around 10 days ago. When he requested his father, a mechanic, to lend him the amount, the latter refused, saying that since he had started working, he should take care of his expenses.

Police say that Varun then decided that killing the delivery agent would be the only way to own the phone and hatched a plot to execute it, the report said and added that on December 8, he ordered the phone online and gave the gym's landline number as his own.

On December 9, around 12.30 pm, Swamy called up Varun from near the building who asked him to come to the second floor. Varun, who did not have money, tried to snatch the smartphone from Swamy. The victim, however, managed to overpower Varun and ran out of the gym; the accused then hit Swamy on his head with a flower pot. When Swamy fell, the accused attacked him again with another flower pot kept in the gym's passage. After the victim fell unconscious, Varun slit his throat with the knife that he had kept in the gym for the purpose.

According to police, after slitting the victim's throat, Varun watched him bleed to death. He dumped the body in the lift shaft only after about 10 hours.

"After murdering the victim around 12.45 pm, the accused hid the body inside the gym as he had difficulties in shifting it. At the time of the incident, there was nobody in the gym. When a few customers came for the evening session, Varun sent them back giving after cooking up a story. Later in the night, after the bank on the first floor and a fruit stall in the basement had shut for the night, Varun shifted the body around 11 pm to the basement. He kept the body in the lift shaft and escaped," said the report quoting an officer who is part of the investigations.

Varun then escaped after taking away two smart phones, Rs 10,000 (five notes of Rs 2000) and other goods to be delivered from the victim's bag. He then started using the Redmi phone and gave the other one, an HTC worth Rs 24,000, to a friend.

Two days after the incident, Swamy's father lodged a complaint with the Byatarayanapura police, as his office was located in that area.

Around the same time, police discovered the body in the lift shaft in Vijayanagar. At that time, they did not know it was Swamy's.

"We spoke to the online portal where the victim worked. We got to know that he was missing after he went to deliver a smartphone to a customer in Vijayanagar and it was the same building where the body was found. We also got to know from the customers that Varun had not opened the gym since Friday. We suspected his involvement and arrested him from his residence SVG Nagar in Moodalapalya on Tuesday," the officer added.

The Vijayanagar police have booked Varun under IPC 302 (murder) and IPC 397 (robbery).

"It was a pre-planned murder as he had kept the kitchen knife in the gym a day before the phone was to be delivered," said DCP (West) MN Anuchet.