NEW DELHI: A financial dispute is suspected to be the main motive for the murder of the Swiss woman whose body was found in west Delhi last month, sources in the Delhi Police said on Monday.
The accused 33-year-old Gurpreet Singh who has studied up to Class 8 was booked in another case under the Arms Act after four firearms were seized from his house, they said.
Nina Berger owed Rs 7 lakh to Singh and her attempts to withdraw the money from different ATMs went in vain due to technical reasons as her bank account was in Switzerland, sources said.
The decomposed body of Berger, aged around 30, was found near the wall of a municipal school in Tilak Nagar on October 20. Her limbs were tied with metal chains, which were locked.
Singh, a gemstone dealer, was arrested a day after the body was found and he was sent to Tihar Jail on Sunday after his police custody ended.
Earlier, Singh revealed that he killed Berger because she turned down his marriage proposal.
Police sources said during the course of interrogation and on the basis of chats retrieved from Berger’s mobile phone, the reason for the murder is suspected to be the financial dispute.
“In their chats, Singh had repeatedly demanded the money back from Berger. Before the murder, Berger had attempted to withdraw the money from different ATMs but failed. Singh had accompanied her during one of her visits to an ATM,” a police official said.
Berger also approached a bank manager to check if she could withdraw the huge amount from her Switzerland-based bank account, police said.
According to police, Singh had known Berger for the last five years and during his Switzerland visit, he offered her gemstones and performed an occult ritual, in which she participated, assuring her that it would end all her problems.
The chats also revealed that he forced her to come to India.
On the day of the incident, she again failed to withdraw money from a bank. Singh then suggested she take part in another occult ritual and tied her limbs and he covered her face with a garbage bag which led to her death due to suffocation, police said.
Police also said that they had launched an investigation into the weapons seized from one of Singh’s houses.
Apart from a house in Janakpuri, where Singh’s mother and sister live, he owns another house in Tilak Nagar from where three sophisticated weapons and a country-made pistol along with 28 bullets were seized.
Police have registered a separate FIR under the Arms Act at the Tilak Nagar police station and Singh could be taken into police custody again, sources said.
Police also suspect that Singh’s father, who is believed to be in France and still has not come to India to join the probe, knew Berger and met her in Switzerland and France.