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Three arrested for killing law student, burying body in basement
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad police Monday arrested a 19-year-old woman and her parents for allegedly murdering their former 30-year-old tenant and burying his body
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad police Monday arrested a 19-year-old woman and her parents for allegedly murdering their former 30-year-old tenant and burying his body in the basement of their house on October 9. The police said the victim was in a relationship with the woman and that allegedly made her family plot the murder of the man and get her involved in it.
The police on the morning of October 14 had recovered the body of Pankaj Kumar Singh from the basement of his former landlord’s house in Girdhar Enclave, Sahibabad.
The man had gone missing and his brother had lodged an FIR pinning the charge on his brother’s former landlord Munna Kumar alias Hari Om and his family members.
The three suspects were identified as Munna Kumar, his wife Sulekha Devi and their daughter Ankita. Pankaj was a native of Balia and was a fourth-year law student at a college in Sahibabad.
“After murdering Pankaj and burying his body, the three had fled to their native village in Bihar and tried to evade arrest. They later rented a house in Delhi and were hiding there. Ankita had earlier taken tuitions from Pankaj and they soon got into a relationship. When her parents got to know this, they were furious. They managed to win Ankita over by telling her lies about Pankaj and then planned Pankaj’s murder — they thought he might trouble Ankita again,” Rakesh Mishra, circle officer (Sahibabad), said.
According to police, the woman called Pankaj over to her house on the morning of October 9.
“Her parents were hiding in the bathroom, waiting for him to arrive. Together, the three of them overpowered Pankaj, held his hands and legs before strangling him to death. About four days before the murder, the three had dug up a portion of the floor in their basement and had planned to bury the body there,” Mishra said.
“After the murder, they buried the body in the basement and cemented the floor. Fearing police action, they fled the house the same day,” Mishra said.
On October 13, when the police team probing Pankaj’s missing complaint reached Munna’s house, it found the freshly cemented part in the basement. It was dug up in the presence of a magistrate on October 14 and the body sent for an autopsy.
The police on Monday said the three were arrested from near Sahibabad police station.
“Ankita is also a suspect as she had called Pankaj over to her house and was present at the scene of crime. The probable motive could be that the parents did not want the man to trouble their daughter again,” Sudhir Kumar Singh, senior superintendent of police, said.
However, Pankaj’s family said they were not convinced of the police theory about the relationship between Pankaj and Ankita led to the murder.
“We are not convinced about the motive. My brother stayed at Munna’s house only for 16 days and later vacated it. It could be that he probably saw something objectionable in the house and did not wish to stay there. He was also running a cyber cafe. It is also possible that Munna wanted to take away his business,” Manish Kumar Singh, Pankaj’s brother, said.
