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Chandigarh: Police crack murder of elderly woman in Sector 8
Chandigarh Police have cracked the blind murder of a 98-year-old woman in Sector 8 within a week with the arrest of a 31-year-old man who lives in servants’ quarters in the same area
Chandigarh Police have cracked the blind murder of a 98-year-old woman in Sector 8 within a week with the arrest of a 31-year-old man who lives in servants’ quarters in the same area.
The suspect has been identified as Kailash Bhatt, who belongs to Almora in Uttarakhand and works as a cook at a house in Sector 15. He stays with him wife at a house in Sector 8, where she works as a domestic help, said police during a press conference on Friday.
Victim Joginder Kaur was found murdered with her throat slit at her house last Friday. Her domestic help was the one to call police around 8:15pm after she found the body on returning from a two-hour-long walk. The kitchen knife used for the murder was recovered from the spot. No valuables were found missing though the house had been ransacked.
According to police, financial distress led the suspect to the crime. Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kuldeep Singh Chahal said Bhatt had lost his job due to the pandemic and remained without work for long.
“He also had a son around the same time (who is now 18-month-old), had purchased a bike recently, and had to repay a debt of about ₹2.5 lakh,” he said.
While police had scanned CCTV footage and mobile data dump of the area to get leads, it was the “human intelligence” that helped them track the killer. “We talked to various residents and their domestic helps, which pointed us to the accused,” said Chahal.
What transpired that day
According to police, Bhatt knew the victim’s domestic help as both were from the same community. He had even carried out a recce and knew that nobody except the elderly woman would be at home at the time of the crime.
Bhatt’s wife had gone to meet her relatives when he struck at Kaur’s house. He first entered the servants’ quarters from the front side and stole ₹800 and some jewellery, said police. Kaur apparently saw him leaving the quarters, and he later returned and killed her.
According to information gathered by police, Kaur was seen talking to him as he came out of the servants’ quarters.
Police have recovered the bloodstained clothes that he had worn that day. They have been sent for forensic testing. Bhatt will be produced in court, where police will seek his remand for further investigations.
