Delhi Police crack 25-year-old murder case, cops went undercover for months to trace suspect
New Delhi, Sep 18: Kishan Lal, who lived in Tughlaqabad area of Delhi, was stabbed to death on a cold February night in 1997 and the killer was untraceable.
Lal, who worked odd jobs, had left behind his wife Sunita, who was pregnant with their first child at the time.
Litigation started in the death case and the Patiala House Court declared absconding suspect Ramu, a daily-wage earner, as a proclaimed offender. He lived in the same neighbourhood as Lal.
His case file from the pre-digital era continued to bite dust for over two decades until a team of the Delhi Police's North District which is trained to handle old cases laid its hands on it in August 2021.
A year later, Sunita got a call from the Delhi Police and was asked to reach Lucknow immediately.
The Delhi Police had caught hold of a 50-year-old man, whom they believed was her husband's killer. They wanted her to confirm the identity of the suspect.
Sunita, who was accompanied by her son Sunny (24), confirmed to the police that the man was Ramu before she fainted.
The woman had lost all hopes of getting justice and even closed doors on our police team that reached out to her last year when they started working on this old case. But it was understandable on her part since a lot of time had lapsed, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North District) Sagar Singh Kalsi told PTI.
The officer heaped praise on the four-member team for cracking the quarter-century old case, noting that it had no eyewitnesses of the murder, no photographs of the accused or clue of his whereabouts.
The team had sub-inspector Yogender Singh, head-constables Puneet Malik and Omprakash Dagar under Inspector Surrender Singh with Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations) Dharmender Kumar as their guide, Kalsi said.
It was pretty much a wild goose chase for the team where they were hoping to get one substantial clue for several months. During the period, the team went undercover on several occasions for investigation within Delhi and in Uttar Pradesh, the DCP said.
The team posed as life insurance agents when it went to Uttam Nagar in Delhi, where they had traced a relative of Ramu on pretext of helping them with money for their deceased kin, Kalsi said.
The team also managed to reach Khanpur village in district Farrukhabad of Uttar Pradesh under the same guise when it met relatives of Ramu, he said.
It was in Farrukhabad that the police chanced upon a mobile number belonging to Aakash, the son of Ramu. Further efforts led the police team to a Facebook account of Aakash through which he was traced in Lucknow's Kapurthala area, the officer said.
The police met Aakash and enquired the whereabouts of his father Ramu, who now lived under the name of Ashok Yadav. He told the team that he has not met his father in a long time and only knows he now runs an e-rickshaw for a living in the Jankipuram area of Lucknow.
This happened recently and the case that was progressing slowly for almost a year suddenly caught pace. The police team, which was undercover, suspected that the information that someone has been inquiring about him might reach Ramu and he may again go into hiding, DCP Kalsi said.
Hot on the killer's pursuit, the police team opted for the guise of agents of an e-rickshaw company and contacted several drivers in the Jankipuram area.They interacted with them on the pretext of providing them subsidies on new e-rickshaw under a central government initiative.
During one such interaction, an e-rickshaw driver led them to Ashok Yadav (Ramu), who was staying near a railway station on September 14. He was apprehended for questioning; he first denied being Ramu or having ever lived in Delhi, the officer said.
The police team had contacted the relatives of Ramu in Farrukhabad to ascertain his identity and also called Sunita from Delhi to confirm if the man indeed was her husband's killer.
Finally when his identity was confirmed, Ramu (50) also confessed that he had hatched Lal's killing for money from a committee (a chit-fund type system among a small group of people) in February 1997.
He had arranged for a party on February 4, where he got Kishan Lal sloshed before stabbing him with a knife and fleeing away with the money, hiding at different locations before settling down in Lucknow, according to officials.
While in hiding, Ramu got identification cards, including Aadhar, made under his new but false identity as Ashok Yadav, Kalsi said.
Now the legal proceedings in the 25-year-old case of murder are further being carried out at the Timarpur police station here, the officer added.
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UP: Govt hospital staff booked for sexually assaulting woman in pretext of ultrasound test
Gorakhpur (PTI): A hospital employee was booked for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in the pretext of an ultrasound test here in the district women's hospital, police said on Saturday.
According to the complaint, the woman, a resident of the Gulriha area, visited the district women's hospital on Thursday morning for an ultrasound test.
She was directed to a room, where Abhimanyu Gupta was conducting ultrasounds. When her turn came, the accused allegedly stared at her and told her to remove all her clothes, claiming it was necessary for the test and that a massage would also be required, she said.
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The woman alleged that once she complied, the accused began making obscene advances and tried to force himself on her. When she screamed, he allegedly gagged her, abused her and threatened to kill her before pushing her out of the room.
She said her complaints within the hospital went unheard, forcing her to approach the police.
Taking cognisance of the complaint, the hospital administration constituted a three-member inquiry committee, officials said.
Senior consultant (paediatrics) Dr Jay Kumar said, "The woman has levelled serious allegations against a staff member. Senior officials have been informed, and a departmental inquiry is underway. Strict action will be taken if the charges are proved."
Kotwali Station House Officer Chatrapal Singh said a case has been registered, and efforts are on to nab the accused.
