E-Paper
Sitapur murders:Crime scene recreations, other facts point at kin of deceased Anurag Singh
Ajit Singh is suspected in the gruesome murders of his brother, mother, sister-in-law, and three nieces/nephews, but investigators are puzzled by how he could have acted alone.
LUCKNOW Recreation of the time sequence multiple times, medical reports produced before investigators, sedative laced food found in the house, snapped wires of the air conditioner and contradictory statements have deepened suspicion on Ajit Singh (40) over the gruesome murders of his elder brother Anurag Singh, his mother and Anurag’s wife and three children. However, investigators still cannot fathom how he could have executed the crime single handedly.
On Saturday, bullet riddled and hammered bodies of Anurag Singh (42), his mother Savitri Singh (62), his wife Priyanka Singh (40) and their three children Aarna, 12, Aadvik, 8, and Aarvi, 7, were found in their house in Palhapur village under Rampur Mathura police station of Sitapur. The lone survivor of the incident, Ajit Singh had earlier claimed that an inebrited Anurag Singh shot himself dead early on Saturday morning after killing his mother, wife and three children after a confrontation with mother and wife. He also produced medical reports of a Lucknow-based rehabilitation centre which hinted that Anurag was an alcoholic.
But the findings of the post-mortem examination brought Ajit Singh under the scanner as he remained unhurt despite being present in the house at the time of the incident. Besides, the post-mortem examination report confirmed that Anurag had two bullet wounds in his head and another wound apparently caused due to a blow with a blunt object.
Sitapur superintendent of police (SP), Chakresh Mishra said the probe was still underway and several suspects, including Ajit Singh, were being interrogated about the incident. He said multiple pieces of evidence related to the crime had been collected and cops would soon work out the case.
A senior police official privy to the investigat6ion said the forensic team had recreated the crime sequence thrice in the past two days and it suggested that the entire family was murdered as part of a planned conspiracy. He said a local shopkeeper had confirmed that Ajit Singh purchased sedatives from his shop around 10 days ago and the same sedative was found mixed in the food found in the Singhs’ house.
He said the crime scene recreation, however, confirmed that the family did not eat the food as they had reached their village only a few hours before the incident and apparently had food from outside. He said the attackers might have planned to kill them all in sleep, but they changed the plan and snapped the wires of the AC in the room in which Priyanka Singh and her three kids were sleeping.
“Priyanka was shot dead and hammered when she came out of the room, The blood stains of Anurag’s mother present near Priyanka’s body suggested she was first attacked with a hammer outside the same room, but she escaped from there and was later shot dead in her room. Thereafter, Anurag Singh was shot in the head while sleeping in another room and the second bullet found in his head was pumped in his body after his death,” said the official and added, “The blood stains of Anurag’s elder daughter suggested she was first attacked in Anurag’s room and was later dragged to the second floor where her two siblings were sleeping and all three children were finally killed after being pushed from the second floor”.
He said two undated cheques signed by the mother had been found in another house in Sitapur’s Mehmoodabad town where Singh stayed with his family separately. He said the evidence collected so far hinted at Ajit Singh as the prime suspect, but he had neither confessed to the crime nor revealed names of the people who had helped him in executing the crime. He said the investigators were baffled that the mystery behind the murders of six people would remain unsolved if they sent Ajit Singh to jail on the basis of evidence collected against him so far.