Lucknow man orders Rs 1.5 lakh iPhone via cash on delivery, kills delivery agent

A 30-year-old delivery agent was allegedly strangled in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow after going to deliver an iPhone worth Rs 1.5 lakh to a customer, police said Monday.
The victim, Bharat Sahu, 30, had been delivering the iPhone to Gajanan, who had ordered it from Flipkart on September 23, Deputy Commissioner of Police Shashank Singh told news agency PTI.
Gajanan, who lives in the city’s Chinhat area, had opted for the cash-on-delivery payment mode.
After Sahu didn’t return home for two days, his family filed a missing person’s report with police. While investigating, police found Gajanan’s phone number and interviewed his friend Akash, who confessed to the crime, Singh said.
Gajanan and his accomplice allegedly strangled Sahu, then put his body in a sack and dumped it in the Indira Canal. Police have been searching for the body with the help of the State Disaster Response Force.
Similar cases involving delivery workers in India have occurred. In 2021, a food delivery worker was killed in Bengaluru during a robbery bid, and in 2022, a delivery agent in Noida was fatally stabbed by customers over a payment dispute.