30-year-old delivery agent killed in Lucknow

He was lured to a customer's home to deliver smartphones worth ₹1 lakh

The incident took place on September 23

A 30-year-old delivery agent, Bharat Prajapati, was allegedly strangled to death in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, after being lured to a customer’s home to deliver smartphones worth around ₹1 lakh, police reported. The incident took place on September 23 when Prajapati went to deliver Google Pixel and Vivo phones ordered from Flipkart to Himanshu Kanaujia in the Chinhat area, under cash-on-delivery terms.

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Deputy Commissioner of Police Shashank Singh revealed that the accused, identified as Gajanan and his accomplice Akash, planned the robbery to steal the expensive smartphones. After Prajapati failed to return home, his family reported him missing on September 25. Police traced Gajanan’s involvement through call records, leading to the arrest of Akash, who confessed during interrogation.

Akash revealed that after luring Prajapati to Kanaujia’s home, they attacked and strangled him. The pair then stuffed his body in a sack and dumped it in the Indira Canal. The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) has been deployed to search for the body.

While Kanaujia and Akash have been arrested, Gajanan remains on the run, with police launching a manhunt to locate him.

This incident follows similar cases of violence against delivery workers, including the 2021 murder of a food delivery worker in Bengaluru and a fatal stabbing of a delivery agent in Noida last year over a payment dispute.