A 20-year-old BBA student in Greater Noida was allegedly strangled to death by four friends after an argument broke out and buried his body 6 ft deep inside a farmland in Amroha, police officials said on Thursday.

Three of the accused were arrested on Wednesday evening after a gunfight with the police in Greater Noida in which the trio suffered gunshot injuries on their legs, officials said.

The victim and the accused belonged to the Gajraula area in Amroha district, Uttar Pradesh, where the murder took place on Tuesday night, the officials said.

The student, who belongs to a business family, was enrolled for a Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA) degree at a private university in Greater Noida. When he did not return to the university hostel after leaving it on Monday, an FIR was lodged at the local Dadri police station and an investigation was initiated, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan said.

"On February 27, the police received information that Bennett University student Yash Mittal had not returned to the hostel since February 26. Immediately, police teams were formed to investigate this case. When CCTV footage was reviewed, it was found that he left the university campus safely in a car while talking to someone on the phone," Khan said.

Later, as part of the probe, call data records were also checked, leading police to some suspects, including his friend Rachit Nagar who told the police about a party in Gajraula where Mittal was invited by his friends, the officer said.

"During the probe, Rachit Nagar told police that he, Yash Mittal, Shivam Singh, Shubham Singh, Sushant Verma and Shubham Chaudhary, who lived in Gajraula (Amroha), are friends with each other since November 2023," the DCP said.

"On February 26, they had called Yash Mittal for the party in Gajraula. He went there during which an argument broke out between him and others after which he was killed and his body was buried inside a farmland in Gajraula. We recovered the body from the farmland on Wednesday," Khan said.

The argument broke out between the accused -- all in their late 20s and financially weak --“ and Mittal, whose family is in the electronics business, after he told them that they were "surviving and having parties on his money", according to a police source privy to the probe.

On Wednesday evening, the police here got to know that the accused were in Greater Noida's Dadri area. During a combing operation, a gunfight broke out during which the accused suffered bullet injuries on their legs, and were later held, police said.

The fourth accused -- Shubham Chaudhary -- is at large and efforts are underway to arrest him, police said.

"The accused told the police that they had killed Yash on February 27 but to mislead the police and his family, they sent ransom messages on February 28," DCP Khan said.

The police said they have lodged two FIRs against the accused -- first for murder, criminal conspiracy, and evidence destruction, and the second after the encounter for an attempt to murder and under the Arms Act. Further legal proceedings in the case are underway, the police added.

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