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Panchkula 2009 double homicide: Accused couple arrested 13 years after murders
The two accused in Panchkula 2009 double homicide were among the most-wanted criminals on Haryana Police’s list and carried a reward amount of ₹1 lakh and ₹50,000 to their names each
Special task force (STF), Ambala, has arrested a “most-wanted” couple from Indore in connection with the 2009 double-murder of a financer and his four-year-old son.
The accused, Raju and his wife, Shilpa, residents of AKS colony, Zirakpur, were nabbed by deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Aman Kumar, STF Ambala unit inspector Deepender Partap Singh and their team from Bilochi Mardana, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on Friday. They will be produced in court for remand.
The two were among the most-wanted criminals on Haryana Police’s list and carried a reward amount of ₹1 lakh and ₹50,000 to their names each.
“The couple’s name appears on the number 1 and 2 sequence on the website of Haryana Police. Different teams had made efforts to arrest them,” said Aman Kumar.
“After nearly three-week-long efforts, we arrested the couple from Indore,” he added.
The case
On the night of February 14, 2009, the victim Vinod Mittal, with his son Yashan, residents of Panchkula, had gone to Raju’s house in Baltana to collect ₹5 lakh. Raju, along with accomplices Sanjay, Ashok, Mobin, Sonu got into the victim’s car on the pretext of getting the cash, but instead allegedly stabbed the victim to death and then drove the car to Rajpura to throw his body into a drain. The victim’s four-year-old child was also present in the car during the ordeal. The culprits then allegedly threw the child into the same drain alive and fled to Rajasthan.
The father-son duo’s bodies were never recovered.
The main accused Raju and his wife had been on the run, along with their one-year-old daughter, whereas the six others – Sanjay Kumar, Sonu and a juvenile were charged with kidnapping and murder.
Police said the duo had changed several locations in the last 13 years, but had three main hiding spots, adding, “They lived for one year in Shirdi, Maharashtra, three to four years in Hyderabad, eight to nine years in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. They changed their identities and made fake identity proofs.”
Raju’s mother-in-law Neeru Bain and maternal uncle Kishan Lal were charged with sheltering the accused and criminal conspiracy, but later acquitted by the Panchkula’s sessions judge.
The juvenile, meanwhile, was awarded a three-year jail term and three others accused Ashok Kumar, Sanajay Kumar and Sonu were awarded life imprisonment..
