Senior auditor stabbed in head, back in Delhi; murderers were told it was for a ‘noble’ cause

Investigating officers said the arrested duo have told them they did not know that their target clearly and that the duo contracted to kill Singh were told that they were helping the woman by killing her harasser.

The 20-year-old man and his minor associate, who were hired to kill a senior auditor by the official’s wife and son, had been made to believe that their victim was the woman’s brother-in-law who used to sexually harass her, police said

Sunita Devi (second from left) and Rishab in police custody. Police said Devi told Rishab and a minor, hired to kill Anand Singh, that he was Sunita’s brother-in-law who sexually harassed her. (HT Photo/ Sourced)

Investigating officers said the arrested duo have told them they did not know that their target — Anand Singh, a senior auditor posted with Director General of Audit (Central Expenditure) — was indeed the woman’s husband. They said the duo contracted to kill Singh were told that they were helping the woman by killing her harasser.

On Wednesday, the police apprehended the 17-year-old minor accused. The mother-son duo and the other alleged killer, Rishab alias Shibbu, were caught on Tuesday. Singh’s body was found with more than half a dozen stab wounds to his head and back in south Delhi’s Om Nagar near Meethapur in Badarpur early Saturday morning.

Police said the 17-year-old boy told them that Singh’s son knew him as he lived some blocks away from his house. However, the teenager did not know the boy’s father because he used to always left for office early and returned home in the night.

The alleged killers claimed that they came to know of the relationship between the deceased and the mother-son duo the next day from the reporting of the incident on news channels. They claimed that they were shocked to know that the man they had murdered was the woman’s husband and not brother-in-law as they were told.

An investigator associated with the case said Singh’s wife, Sunita Devi, and his 16-year-old son had hatched the conspiracy to murder him because Singh was allegedly an alcoholic and used to ill-treat his wife and three children. The teenager had developed grudge against his father because of his bad behaviour and his resentment was increasing with each passing day, the officer said.

“Devi or her son have shown no remorse for their crime since. She told us that her husband used to fight whenever she protested against his drinking habit. Singh’s son told us that his father never gave him pocket money and he used to abuse and scold him whenever he asked for money. Also, neither he, nor his two siblings, ever got a gift from their father, or he ever took them for an outing,” said the officer.

“Singh is not alive to defend the allegations. He was an alcoholic but people in his neighbourhood and office remember him as a disciplined and soft-spoken person. We don’t know whether the allegations his family members have made are true. But, no other motive surfaced during our probe,” the officer added.

On July 5 night, DCP (southeast) Chinmoy Biswal had said that Devi and her son called the duo to their house and asked them to hide on the terrace. Singh returned around 11.30 pm and was drunk. He slept without having dinner. Around 2.30 am, the mother-son called the duo.

“The two stabbed Singh as Devi and her son stood outside to keep a watch on other family members. The killers fled and Devi left the door open to pass it off as a murder,” he said.