New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The CBI has arrested an alleged killer of a student who had evaded authorities for over two decades while living under an assumed identity in Maharashtra’s Nagpur, an official said on Saturday.
Durga Bahadur Bhat Chetri, alias Deepak, was apprehended on Friday in connection with the 2005 abduction and ransom-driven killing of student Shyamal Mandal in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in 2005, bringing closure to a case that had remained unsolved for years.
Declared a proclaimed offender, Chetri had been absconding since the crime, while his accomplice Mohammed Ali was convicted in 2022.
Mandal went missing in 2005 in what investigators later described as a premeditated abduction. A ransom call to his father soon followed, turning the case into an extortion-cum-murder probe.
“The case relates to the disappearance of Shyamal Mandal, followed by a ransom call to his father and finally on 23.10.2005, his dead body was found near Vellar in the Thiruvallam area in Thiruvananthapuram,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
The Kerala High Court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in December 2008, reflecting concerns about the complexity and gravity of the investigation.
The agency formally re-registered the case at the end of the year, initiating a protracted inquiry marked by intermittent breakthroughs, it said After a thorough investigation, the CBI filed a chargesheet against both the accused hailing from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the agency said in a statement.
During the investigation, Chetri disappeared and assumed a new identity as Suraj Bhatt. He lived in Nagpur for four years, building a seemingly ordinary life, including getting married.
Acting on “intelligence inputs” that were corroborated through verification efforts, suggesting a convergence of human intelligence and routine policing rather than a single dramatic breakthrough, the CBI nailed his location in Nagpur, the spokesperson said. PTI ABS RHL
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