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After spree of cold-blooded killings, suspect surrenders
The other three victims were the tenant Krishan Tiwari, 45, his wife, Anamika Tiwari, 35, and the couple’s nine-year-old daughter.
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A retired army subedar allegedly murdered four people, including his daughter-in-law, with a knife used to prune plants early on Tuesday morning, and later walked into a police station with the murder weapon to confess his crime.
The other three victims were the tenant Krishan Tiwari, 45, his wife, Anamika Tiwari, 35, and the couple’s nine-year-old daughter. They all suffered multiple stab wounds. The couple’s younger daughter, a three-year-old, survived the attack and is battling for life in hospital, police said. According to investigators,the accused, Rao Rai Singh, suspected that his daughter-in-law, 40-year-old Sunita Yadav, was in a relationship with Krishan Tiwari.
DCP Deepak Saharan said the four murders took place between 2.30am and 4am on Tuesday. “Prima facie, evidence suggests the suspect, Rao Rai Singh Yadav, 59, a retired subedar of the Indian Army, bolted all the doors of the house and murdered four people with a long knife used for pruning garden plants, when the victims were sleeping on different floors of the building,” Saharan said.
Yadav surrendered at the Rajendra Park police station around 6am, and told the police that he has murdered four people in his house. A team station reached the spot and recovered the bodies around 7am.
The relatives of the deceased have been informed and a post-mortem examination was conducted by a board doctors on Tuesday evening, Saharan said. The report was still awaited.
“First, he murdered Sunita Yadav, who was sleeping on the first floor, and then went to the second floor and killed three tenants with the weapon. A minor daughter of the tenant who was also attacked, survived,” assistant commissioner of police (crime) Preet Pal Sangwan said.
Police said that despite gruesome injuries, nobody in the house or the neighbours heard any cries due to the noise from air coolers. “It was a sudden attack and Rao took everyone by surprise, giving them no time to react,” Saharan said. Yadav’s wife has told the police that she was asleep, and his son, Anand Yadav, said that he was in Shyam Khatu in Rajasthan. The police are verifying their locations.
Singh stays in a three-storey building with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law on the first floor. On the second floor, Krishan Tiwari lived with his wife and their two daughters.
“A three-year-old girl, who had suffered multiple stab injuries, was breathing when the teams reached. She was immediately sent to a hospital. Later, she was referred to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital where the doctors described her condition as critical. We are questioning Singh, his wife, and son, who are also suspects,” Saharan said.
ACP Sangwan said that Yadav’s son, Anand, is a lawyer in the Gurugram court. He told police that he reached the city only on Tuesday morning. “His phone location will be checked to establish his whereabouts,” said Sangwan.
“This is a cold-blooded, gruesome murder. There are signs of injuries on bodies that appear to have been caused after death... The suspect has told the police that he kept stabbing his victims,” Sangwan added.
A team of forensic experts, fingerprint experts and crime teams lifted samples from the crime scene on Tuesday afternoon, and a team of cyber crime police station has been involved for technical surveillance.
Dr Deepak Mathur, the forensic expert who conducted the autopsy of the bodies, said Kishan Tiwari suffered seven stab wounds to his head and neck. His wife Anamika suffered 22 injuries on her neck, face and head, her daughter had 16 injury marks, and Sunita had 17 grave injuries. “We have also found fractures in the skull of victims. The fingers were partially chopped due to the likely resistance put up by victims,” he said.
The neighbours claimed that Singh was allegedly concerned for the past few months over domestic issues. “Initial inquiry suggests there was no trouble within the family,” said Saharan.
Delhi resident Ashwani Mishra, Tiwari’s brother-in-law, said the police informed him about the incident. “I was shocked to find all the family members lying in a pool of blood. The landlord was troubling them, and was not ready to return their security deposit. Krishan had come to our house in Delhi on Rakshabandhan and told us how the landlord tried to molest his wife several times. They wanted to move out of the house at the earliest,” he alleged.
The police did not respond to queries about his allegations.
Another relative said that Tiwari was living in the house for the last two years. He had lost his job at a bank during the lockdown. “He went to his village with his family and returned this month. The landlord was demanding money from him and was troubling them, but he had no job to pay him and was asking for more time,” the relative said, asking not to be named.
A case under IPC sections 302 (murder), 120 B (conspiracy) and 307 (attempt to murder) and sections of the Arms Act has been registered at the Rajendra Park police station.
