MEERUT: Over half-a-dozen gunmen waylaid the car of a newly-wed couple on NH-58 late on Friday and shot 18-year-old bride Mehvish Parveen. Along with the groom, Mohammed Shahzeb, 22, and three other members of the family, she was returning to Shahzeb's house in Muzaffarnagar barely hours after their wedding in Ghaziabad's Nahla village on Friday.
Parveen, a resident of Ghaziabad, died on the spot. The men fled with cash, jewellery and the car from the spot in Meerut's Mataur village in Daurala area.
"When one of the men pointed a gun at me, Mehvish screamed in fear. They instantly shot her in the chest. May be, they feared her screams would alert passersby on the busy stretch of the highway," Shahzeb told TOI .
The incident sent shockwaves in the region even as police forces of three districts — Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Ghaziabad — have been pressed into action. A few hours after their marriage was solemnised at the bride’s house in Ghaziabad, the couple left for the groom’s native place. They were an hour’s drive away from their destination when tragedy struck them on the highway.
“I saw a man pointing a gun at my brother-in-law who was sitting in the front seat of the car. We heeded to their demands and gave away all the jewellery and cash we had,” Shahzeb, the groom, said. Moments later, his wife, Mehvish, was dead.
The family buried Mehvish at her native village in Ghaziabad on Saturday. “In the CCTV footage accessed from a toll plaza in Daurala, we have spotted a car closely following the victim’s vehicle. As of now, we are taking it as a robbery-cum-murder case,” Meerut SP (city) SP Dwivedi said. According to police, the car which was following the victim’s vehicle bore a Delhi registration number plate. “The number was found to be registered in the name of Meerut-based businessman Pradeep Bansal,” Meerut SSP Manzil Saini said.