Man held for killing elderly parents for property

Ghaziabad The city police arrested a 40-year-old man on Sunday for allegedly killing his parents at their house in Balram Nagar area of Loni in Ghaziabad on Friday

Ghaziabad The city police arrested a 40-year-old man on Sunday for allegedly killing his parents at their house in Balram Nagar area of Loni in Ghaziabad on Friday.

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The suspect, identified as Ravi Dhaka, owns a grocery shop in the locality. Earlier, he worked as a collection agent for online companies. According to the police, Ravi was miffed with his parents — 70-year-old Surendra Singh and his 63-year-old wife Santosh Singh — who were bent on transferring property ownership to the infant child and widow of their other son, Gaurav. Police said Gaurav had died in a road accident in 2019, and his wife had been taking care of his parents since then.

During the investigation, police said they got initial clues from the neighbours who had told them that the suspect was allegedly not on good terms with his parents.

“After the cremation, we interrogated Ravi, and he broke down and confessed to his crime. He said he had strangled both his parents around 10 am on Friday, before going to his shop that day. Usually, he returns by the afternoon to eat lunch and sleep, but that day, he did not go home and instead visited a neighbour’s house where he stayed till the evening. He wanted someone else to visit his house and inform the police about the murders,” the SP said.

However, no one visited the house, and Ravi allegedly finally went to his house in the evening on Friday raised an alarm, after which the police reached there, the SP added.

“The house was ransacked, suggesting that someone had entered there for robbery, and later, murdered the elderly couple. However, the entire situation seemed suspicious. The bodies had developed rigor mortis, which generally happens in eight-10 hours, indicating that the murders took place somewhere during the morning that day. Post-mortem reports also indicated almost similar time of deaths,” said Iraj Raja, superintendent of police (rural).

Police said that Santosh was strangled first with a cloth, and Surendra was strangled with a wire later.

The call records of the victims also revealed that they did not call anyone from their cellphone after 8.30am on Friday. Police said Ravi allegedly told the police that he felt neglected when he got to know that his parents wanted to transfer property ownership to his sister-in-law, who stayed in the same house.

“Both Ravi’s sister-in-law, and wife were at their parents’ houses on the day of the murder. Taking advantage of this situation, Ravi, who was alone with his parents, killed them,” the SP added.

A case was registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 302 (murder) against Ravi at the Loni Border police station.