A property dealer of Mohali was abducted and later battered to death by his manager, driver and their two accomplices, the Mohali police said on Wednesday.

Harwinder Singh, who was in his mid-30s, lived in a rented accommodation in Phase I. “He was killed at the house of his manager, Randhir Singh alias Dheera, which the latter shared with Harwinder’s driver, Girdhari Lal, at Dhanas village,” Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jatinder Singh Aulakh said after the week-old abduction case was cracked late on Wednesday evening.

Harwinder, who had been missing since February 4, was done to death with baseball bats and swords, he added.

Aulakh told Newsline that the four criminals drove Harwinder’s body in his Maruti Zen car to Sirhind canal near Neelon bridge in Ludhiana and pushed the car in the water to pass it off as an accident. The car, with the decomposed body lying inside, was fished out on Wednesday.

The SSP claimed that the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) of Mohali police arrested all the four killers in less than 24 hours of the registration of the FIR by his family.

CIA in-charge Sub-Inspector Gurwinder Singh said the accused killed Harwinder because he had come to know of certain frauds committed by Dheera in his real estate business. Harwinder had recently reprimanded Dheera and asked him to pay up, Gurwinder Singh said on the basis of the preliminary interrogation of Dheera.

Harwinder leaves behind his wife and two children — a 15-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. Originally a resident of Ranike village in Barnala district, Harwinder and his family had shifted to Mohali a few months ago, after he started the property business, his father-in-law Banta Singh told the police. The family had not heard from him ever since he left with the four accused for a “land deal” on February 4.

On that day, Harwinder and Banta, had gone to Dhuri, where they withdrew Rs 3 lakh from a bank and then came back to Mohali.

“After we returned home, Dheera and Girdhari, along with two others from Ranike — Sewak Singh alias Sewi and Nirmal Singh — came in a Ford Ikon car driven by Girdhari and asked Harwinder to accompany them to Sialba Majri village near Chandigarh to get a land deal registered,” said Banta.

He said Harwinder left in his Maruti Zen with Rs 3 lakh in cash and never returned.

The CIA in-charge claimed that Harwinder had made certain payments to his clients on the way, while Rs 1 lakh, which was still in his pocket, was robbed by the accused after the murder.