New Delhi: In February 2018, 35-year-old Rajesh allegedly killed his wife and two children, before burying them under cement at his home in Noida.
Two months later, he allegedly killed his friend Rajendra at Dholna area in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj. Rajesh, police said, was looking to fake his own death and as such, picked Rajendra as the two bore a physical resemblance.
Rajesh allegedly chopped off Rajendra’s hands and head, and dumped the body with some of his ID cards in a nearby area.
Police said he then headed off to Panipat in Haryana, where he did surgery on his nose to conceal his identity. All this, to continue an illicit relationship with Ruby, a constable with the Uttar Pradesh police.
Rajesh nearly pulled off the perfect crime if not for an alert SP of the Uttar Pradesh police.
On Wednesday, more than three years after the murders, the Kasganj Police arrested Rajesh and exhumed the bodies of his wife Ratnesh, 27, and their two children — Avni and Arpit.
Police have also arrested Rajesh’s father, Banwari, a retired UP Police constable; Rajesh’s brothers Prabesh and Rajiv; their mother Indrawati and Ruby, his alleged girlfriend posted with Agra police.
The murder weapon — an axe— used to kill all four has been recovered by the police.
A ‘bloody affair’
According to the Kasganj Police, Rajesh and Ruby had been in a relationship for eight years, even though he got married to Ratnesh in 2012.
The duo carried on with their affair and as problems cropped up in his marriage, they allegedly hatched a plan to kill his family.
After allegedly killing his wife and children, Rajesh built a cement slab (flooring) on their graves in their Noida house.
Police say they were first led to Rajesh after Ratnesh’s father, having failed to see or speak to his daughter registered a missing complaint under sections 498A (husband or in-laws cruelty/torture to woman) and 364A (kidnapping for ransom) in Noida’s Bisakh district.
After a couple of visits to the police station for questioning, Rajesh, his family and Ruby allegedly hatched a plan to fake his death and get a new identity.
According to Kasganj Police SP Botre Rohan Pramod, Rajesh zeroed in on Rajendra, who was of the same height. He killed Rajendra in April 2018, whose body was recovered.
“Rajesh then created a fake ID — an Aadhaar card under the name of Dilip Sharma and shifted to Panipat, Haryana,” SP Rohan said.
According to the police, Rajesh had worked at a private lab for eight years where he gained knowledge of forensic science. This, they added, helped him chalk out a strategy to get away with the murders — bury the bodies and chop Rajendra’s head and hands making DNA sampling a difficult task.
“Rajesh worked in a Path Lab in Noida and that’s how he had the knowledge of forensic science and DNA. This helped him to evade arrest for so long,” SP Rohan told ThePrint.
How the crime finally caught up with Rajesh
The smoking gun in the case turned out to be the DNA reports.
“When Rajendra’s body was found, Rajesh’s father, Banwari, claimed it to be his son’s body but a DNA report didn’t link them,” SP Rohan said. “Rajiv (Rajesh’s brother) then went to the Dholna police station and got a case registered against Ratnesh’s father and her brother.”
According to the police, Rajendra’s DNA report was pending in Lucknow for 42 months and the SP while going through pending cases noted the lag and followed it up.
“The DNA report was pending in Lucknow for 42 months, when I was going through pending case files, we noticed the lag and got hold of the report that clarified that Rajesh is not the one who died in April 2018 in Kasganj as it didn’t match his father’s DNA,” SP Rohan said.
It was then that police say they decided to monitor Ruby’s calls, which eventually led them to Rajesh, who was allegedly working as a labourer in Haryana.
“On the basis of the DNA report, call record details between Ruby and Rajesh and other technical surveillance, the police traced him to Haryana,” SP Rohan said.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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