Kataria murder: Indore police arrest small-time mechanic

Police in Indore on Wednesday said they had solved the murder of Rajkumari Kataria, adding that the weapon used is yet to be recovered and will be searched for after the accused is quizzing.

Police in Indore on Wednesday said they had solved the murder of Rajkumari Kataria, adding that the weapon used is yet to be recovered and will be searched for after the accused is quizzing.

Sonu Sarkade is produced before media by police at a press conference in Indore on Wednesday.(Shankar Mourya/HT photo)

Kataria was brutally murdered inside her Baikunthdham colony house on Tuesday.

Police have zeroed in on Sonu Sarkade, a small-time mechanic and labourer, as the main suspect. He has been booked under various sections of the IPC and further investigation is on. Police said he was employed by a school near Kataria’s house.

“On the day of the murder, Sonu was called by Kataria for some work in the bathroom. Sonu asked for Rs 3,000 as labour charges but Kataria was giving him only Rs 300. He had an altercation with her and turned violent, hitting her with a sharp-edged weapon many times. She died on the spot,” said DIG (Indore) Santosh Kumar Singh.

“He then tried to search money or ornaments in house but could not find them easily hence he rummaged the cupboards and decided to leave the house as soon as possible,” Singh added.

The police said that Sarkade’s clothes were stained with blood, so he wore a jacket and reached his home in the Annapurna locality of the city.

“Sonu then left the city with his wife and kids. We started tracing him... He fled to Ujjain and then left the state but he was nabbed,” the DIG said.

Police said that they are quizzing Sonu and the murder weapon is yet to be recovered. “We have a lot of physical evidence against him and other evidence will be gathered after he will be quizzed in police remand,” the DIG said.

This is not the first time Sarkade has been accused of homicide. DIG Singh said he was booked for murder in 2006 but was later acquitted after the victim’s husband allegedly turned hostile in court.