NEW DELHI: Divya Pahuja, a 27-year-old former model was fatally shot to death inside a Gurugram hotel last Tuesday. This is learned as a retaliation for Pahuja’s earlier involvement in the murder of dreaded gangster Sandeep Gadoli who was killed inside a Mumbai hotel on February 7, 2016, in an alleged encounter. Divya was killed last Tuesday in the City Point Hotel room in Gurugram.

In 2016, at the tender age of 18, Divya Pahuja, an emerging model in those days started an amour with Gurugram’s most wanted gangster Sandeep Gadoli. On February 7, 2016, Divya was present when gang leader Sandeep Gadoli was killed in a fake encounter at a hotel near Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

According to sources, It was Divya who leaked information about Gadoli’s whereabouts to Haryana police. Mumbai Police say that another gang leader, Binder Gujjar, was planning a fake encounter with the Haryana Police to get rid of Gadoli. They shrewdly used Pahuja to lure Gadoli to the hotel to eliminate him.

Divya, who was arrested for abetting in the Sandeep murder case, was in jail for the last seven years. It was in June 2023 that the court allowed bail to the former model. According to the police, Abhijit Singh, the owner of the hotel where Divya was killed, is behind the murder.

Abhijit, Divya and another person reached the hotel reception on January 2 and went to room number 111. Just moments later, Divya was brutally murdered. Abhijit along with his assistants dragged the body from the room, took it in a BMW car and abandoned it. The police have received CCTV footage of Abhijit and others wrapping Divya's body in a sheet and dragging it away.

According to police, Abhijit confronted Divya to delete his private pictures from her phone. Divya ignored the request and adopted a haughty attitude which irked Abhijith. A heated exchange soon took place after which Abhijit fatally shot Divya. The police said that they had started a search to find Divya's body and arrested the accused.

Gangster Sandeep Gadoli had a bounty price of Rs 2 lakh on his head and was also accused of various murder charges.