New Delhi, July 6 -- Tattoos on a man whose face was mutilated beyond recognition helped Delhi Police establish his identity and crack a revenge murder case, leading to the arrest of three men who allegedly killed him, officials said on Monday.
The police said that the accused evaded arrest by moving across several states for more than six weeks.
"The victim was identified as Chandan Saini (34), a resident of Nehru Vihar in north Delhi, whose body bearing multiple stab wounds was found in the Yamuna Khadar area in Wazirabad on May 21," Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Raja Banthia said in a statement.
The police said the victim's face had been severely disfigured, making identification impossible. However, the teams noticed a tattoo carrying two names and a symbol on his hand. The image was circulated locally, enabling police to establish his identity. Further verification revealed that Saini was a bad character of Timarpur police station and had previous involvement in five cases of snatching, burglary and theft.
An FIR of murder was registered at Wazirabad police station, following which joint teams were formed to investigate the case and to arrest the accused in the murder.
Teams scanned CCTV footage from the victim's neighbourhood and the route leading to the crime scene.
CCTV footage from the neighbourhood showed Saini boarding an autorickshaw outside his house on the intervening night of May 20 and 21.
The team could not ascertain the registration number of the vehicle; they established that he had willingly left with its occupants," the officer said.
The breakthrough came during the questioning of Surjeet alias Bacchi, an associate of the deceased and also a bad character of Timarpur police station.
He told investigators that Saini had an old enmity with Tarun alias Tanni and frequently abused him and his friends.
He also disclosed that on May 18, just two days before the murder, Saini and his associates had allegedly assaulted and attempted to abduct Tarun's brother, Saurabh, during a quarrel. Based on the disclosures, Tarun emerged as the prime suspect. However, when police raided his residence, he had already fled.
"The teams subsequently found that Tarun's cousin Sunny Mahajan from Amritsar and his friend Dheeraj had also disappeared after the incident," he added. The trio kept changing locations, moving through Mumbai, Amritsar, Katra in Jammu, Haridwar, Loni in Ghaziabad and other places to avoid arrest. The accused frequently stayed at gurdwaras while on the run and returned to Delhi only around 10 days before their arrest, taking shelter near Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Chandni Chowk.
"On July 5, acting on a tip-off, police apprehended Dheeraj from Loni in Ghaziabad. Based on his interrogation, Tarun and Sunny were arrested later the same day from a mortuary in north Delhi," he said.
During questioning, Tarun confessed that he planned the murder to avenge the attack on his brother.
According to the police, he roped in Sunny and Dheeraj, hired an autorickshaw and picked up Saini from his residence on the pretext of consuming liquor.
The accused allegedly assaulted Saini inside the autorickshaw before taking him to a forested stretch near Yamuna Khadar, where they repeatedly stabbed him to death. They later fled Delhi and kept moving between different states to evade arrest, the police said.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.