Last update:
During interrogation, the accused gym trainer revealed that he had watched Bollywood anchor Drishyam many times, where the lead actor buried the dead body in the under construction area of the police station so that he could not be found.
Vimal Soni, 35, who has been on the run since June, after killing his client, was arrested while trying to contact his family. (Photo: News18)
Police in Uttar Pradesh (UP) on Tuesday exhumed the body of a 32-year-old woman, four months after she was allegedly killed by her gym trainer, in what many called “Drishyam style”. The suspect hid the body of the deceased in the Officer’s Club area, near the District Magistrate’s house in Kanpur, in the hope that this high-rise would interfere with the police search, as per the plot of the Ajay Devgn-starrer film.
The suspect, Vimal Soni, 35, who has been on the run since June, was arrested while trying to contact his family. After his arrest, the police, after gathering information from him, removed the body of the deceased from the premises of the Officer’s Club. The woman has been identified as Ekta Gupta, who is the wife of a prominent businessman.
During interrogation, the accused gym trainer revealed that he had watched Bollywood anchor Drishyam many times, where the lead actor buried the dead body in the under construction area of the police station so that he could not be found. Inspired by this plot, he chose to bury the woman’s body in a high-profile place, thinking it would escape police surveillance. He also revealed that, to avoid arrest, he threw away his SIM cards and avoided any financial transactions – tricks he said he learned from the film.
“The accused, Vimal Soni, and the victim, Ekta Gupta, were dating each other. The woman is said to have been upset by the completion of the man’s marriage. On the day of the crime, he had arrived at the gym after 20 days, and the two had gotten into the car to talk. An argument broke out when he punched her in the neck, causing her to faint. Then he killed it,” said Shravan Kumar Singh, DCP North Kanpur.
Vimal and Ekta’s relationship
Vimal Soni, a well-known gym trainer at Kanpur’s Green Park gym, used to train high-ranking officials and their families, giving him easy access to government premises and police quarters. According to the police, Ekta Gupta, a 32-year-old businessman’s wife, joined the gym in March 2023, determined to improve her health. He and Vimal began to interact closely with each other over time.
Vimal told the police, “On Ekta’s insistence, I started training her in the gym. It was April when Ekta Gupta and I started talking. He called me several times every day to discuss health matters. Soon, we started meeting outside the gym, usually in the evenings.”
As Vimal’s family starts planning his wedding, tensions between him and Ekta grow. “Every time I talked to him about my marriage, he would get angry. We didn’t talk for days. I will convince him by deceiving him,” he told the police. However, things took a turn for the worse after his tilak ceremony in June and Ekta became very disturbed and was pressuring Vimal to rethink his marriage plans, police said. However, Vimal felt bound by his family’s decision and tried many times to distance himself from them.
Crime Day
On June 24, Ekta arrived at the gym after a 20-day absence and went straight to Vimal’s car, where an argument soon broke out. “I tried to reason with him, but he started screaming,” Vimal told the police. He said that while trying to calm him down, he accidentally punched him in the neck and knocked him unconscious. “I thought he would wake up later, but he was already dead.” I’m afraid. I started thinking about where to throw the body,” Vimal told the police.
Drishyam angle
This reminded him of Drishyam, where the lead actor dumped a dead body in a derelict police station to avoid a police search. During questioning, Vimal told the police that since he was familiar with the residential area of Kanpur municipality and the neighboring luxury area, he thought of dumping the body there to avoid police search. “I put Ekta’s body on the back seat of the car and found a shovel. Driving to the DM compound, I parked my car without arousing suspicion as I used to visit this place and under the cover of darkness, I dug a hole about five meters deep and two and a half meters wide and buried Ekta’s body,” the accused admitted during interrogation.
He also admitted that after disposing of Ekta’s body, he broke Ekta’s phone and her phone that he had seen in the film to avoid arrest by the police.
He tried to kill himself
After disposing of Ekta’s body, Vimal Soni confessed to the police that he had tried to commit suicide because of the crime. “I was scared. I went straight to Ganga Barrage, tried to kill myself twice there. But I’m afraid,” Soni admitted. He then went to Bada Chauraha and contacted his nephew, asking for a change of clothes. After finding the clothes, he continued his escape to Jhankarkati, where he boarded a bus to escape the city.
Vimal’s arrest
DCP Shravan Kumar elaborated on the challenges faced by the police in tracking down Vimal Soni, who evaded detection by not using his phone or doing financial transactions. After months of evading arrest, Vimal finally contacted his family, which led to his arrest in connection with the murder of Ekta Gupta, who had last visited the gym at Green Park Stadium on June 24 and disappeared since then.
Her husband filed an FIR against Vimal in this regard. “Several teams were sent to Delhi, Pune, Agra, Gwalior and Punjab. “Vimal was tracked by Mahoba and later he went to Punjab, where he worked in a hotel, and used to have little contact with the staff,” said Kumar.
The police worked with his family, which enabled them to pinpoint his location.
Initially, Vimal said that he dumped Ekta Gupta’s body in the Ganga but later admitted that he buried it in the premises of the Officer’s Club, near the residence of the District Magistrate on VIP Road. Investigation teams, under the direction of Joint Commissioner of Police Harish Chander, excavated the area and recovered the body. Vimal admitted that he had chosen the place, believing that there was little chance that the police would search near DM’s house.