Srinagar, May 20 -- New Delhi- He disappeared without a trace after stepping out on parole. For 24 years, he escaped prison bars, changed his identity, built a new life and quietly blended into society - until his past finally caught up with him.In a dramatic end to a decades-long manhunt, Delhi Police have arrested Rakesh Patel alias Pappi, a life convict in a murder case who vanished after jumping parole in 2002 and spent nearly a quarter of a century on the run.

But Pappi wasn't just hiding - he had allegedly become someone else.

According to police, Patel had reinvented himself as "Nandlal Verma" and was living in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj, where he had built a seemingly ordinary life. He was running an auto spare parts business, in...