DCP (North) S.N. Srivastava today said the men are between the ages of 20 and 30, all from lower middle-class families and described them as ``regular neighbourhood boys'' all employed part-time or unemployed. He also said: ``They had killed three people, but they had no remorse whatsoever. They were so hardened.''

On October 8, Manish Jain was working at his Pearl Printing Press in Inder Lok. He suddenly left the press in his Maruti (Dl-4CF-3946) at about 1.45 p.m. and never returned. The police subsequently found his body with stab wounds and dumped in a gutter in Pappankalan.

When the police questioned Jain's employees, they said that he left the press after receiving a message from Rohit Bhatti. The pager, recovered by the police, showed the following message received by Jain that day at 2 p.m.: Rohit waiting at Liberty.

The police then tracked down Rohit, who admitted that he and his friend Pradeep Pillai first met Jain when they needed to get cards printed for a dance. But Rohit refused to volunteer any more information, which increased the police's suspicions.

Further investigations revealed that Rohit had with him a number of deposit vouchers from a bank and post office account book, in the name of L.S. Yadav. Incidentally, Yadav -- a retired UN official living in Vasant Kunj -- was abducted and subsequently murdered by three men. The South West district police arrested the three on October 10.

Meanwhile, Rohit admitted himself to Mahindra Hospital in Green Park, where he was operated on for appendicitis. He was interrogated after he was discharged, when he revealed that he and his friends -- Arvind, Bharat, Sanjay and Pradeep -- planned Jain's kidnapping. The three were arrested by the South West district police for Yadav's murder.

Rohit reportedly said that they had brought Jain to a house in Pappankalan, where the others were waiting. When two of them tried to tie his hands behind his back, Jain reportedly resisted and then screamed. Two of the men then held him while another tried to choke him. Jain reacted by biting one man's finger. This act infuriated the others, one of whom stabbed him in the back. Jain was later reportedly strangled, his body first dumped in a gutter and then buried near the house.

After the arrest of the accused, Jain's body was disinterred in the presence of the Kotwali Sub-Divisional Magistrate and a team of surgeons from the Civil Hospital at Rajpur Road.

According to the police, further investigation revealed that they were also responsible for the abduction and murder of East of Kailash resident Kishan Peshwani, who owned a dry-cleaning shop in Sarita Vihar. This was allegedly done at the instance of Noida property dealers Ashok Gupta and Gurpreet Singh.

Peshwani's father Shatrughan had finalised a deal through these two brokers, for property worth Rs 20 lakh. Arvind later found to be the mastermind behind the abductions and murders knew Gupta through a common friend.

Peshwani was lured to the Pappankalan house on the excuse that he would be introduced to someone who would give him a laundry contract with Centaur Hotel. The police said he was kept there for three to four days while they waited for the ransom money from his father. When there was no sign of the money, the men reportedly took Peshwani to Alwar, strangled him to death and dumped his body on the road.

Arvind, who reportedly masterminded the crimes, started off as an employee in a Nehru Place shop. He then took on a job as a driver with the owner of a health clinic. This person gave him the house in Pappankalan and he subsequently started dealing in property.

Arvind met Sanjay educated up to class X and unemployed while working at Nehru Place. While brothers, Bharat (21) and Tarun, are the sons of an assistant customs commissioner, Rohit is a second year BA student.