By IANS,
New Delhi : A 21-year-old aspiring actor was murdered here by his arrested script writer friend for Rs.2 lakh, police said Monday.
Shanti Deep Verma, 31, an alumnus of Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, killed Sumit Tewari as he needed money, police said after questioning the accused.
Verma was arrested 10 days after the body of victim Tewari was recovered Feb 23 from the former’s house in Mandawali in east Delhi, police said.
A team of Delhi police arrested Verma from Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh Sunday morning.
“Verma needed money as none of his scripts were getting sold. He pretended to offer work in his forthcoming film to Tewari, whom he was befriended through the Facebook, and abducted him,” said a police officer.
On Feb 21, Verma called Tewari and asked him to do a rehearsal at his home for a film.
When Tewari came, Verma made him do several rehearsal after reading him portions of the script of the film. He then showed him a portion of a Hindi movie “Fas Gaye Re Obama” in which hands and legs of an actor were tied and a cloth tied on his mouth.
Verma asked Tewari to enact that scene. He tied the legs and hands of Tewari and also gagged him but refused to free him unless he got Rs.2 lakh from his parents, police said.
As the victim tried to raise an alarm, Verma strangled him, police said.
After stuffing Tewari body in suitcase, Verma made a Rs.2 lakh ransom call to his father. He fled to Uttar Pradesh after he failed to extract the ransom money, police said.
Tewari had done a three-month course in modelling and acting from Noida. He was looking forward to becoming a model and TV actor, police said.