Five Indian-origin men charged with murder in New Jersey

Kuldeep Kumar's body was found with gunshot wounds in the Greenwood Wildlife Management Area, a nature preserve in New Jersey, on December 14

New York: Five Indian-origin men have been arrested and charged with the murder of an Indian, whose bullet-ridden body had been found in a forest in New Jersey, according to officials.

The last of the five, Sandeep Kumar, was arrested on Friday, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer and New Jersey Police Colonel Patrick Callahan said on Saturday.

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Kuldeep Kumar’s body was found with gunshot wounds in the Greenwood Wildlife Management Area, a nature preserve in New Jersey, on December 14. Although Kumar’s family in New York had reported him missing on October 26, according to the prosecutor’s office, it was almost two months before someone discovered his body and informed the prosecutor’s Major Crimes Unit.

The alleged murder happened around October 22, leaving the body in a stage of ‘advanced decomposition’ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) helped identify Kumar, the prosecutor’s office said.

Investigations by several law enforcement agencies zeroed in on the five accused. Four of them from Greenwood in Indiana State, Sourav Kumar, 23, Guarav Singh, 27, Nirmal Singh, 30, and Gurdeep Singh, 22, and Sandeep Kumar, 34, from Ozone Park in New York were identified as the alleged perpetrators, according to the prosecutor’s office.

While the prosecutor said the victim was Indian, he did not give the citizenship of those arrested, or the motivation for the alleged murder. The accused men from Indiana were arrested there by the FBI, the prosecutor’s detective, and Indiana police ‘without incident’ on December 20, Billhimer’s office said. They are held in an Indiana jail awaiting extradition to New Jersey.

Under US laws, when a person wanted in a crime is arrested in another state, prosecutors have to go through an extradition process in a court during which the arrested person can contest extradition.