Police have arrested a man and his accomplice two months after he strangled his tenant, chopped his body into pieces and disposed them off at different places, police said yesterday.
The accused have been identified as Umesh Sharma and Pravesh, they said, adding a saw used in commission of crime and bloodstained clothes among other things have been recovered.
Ankit Khokar, a native of Baghpat, was living in a rented house in Radha Enclave colony and had close friendship with his landlord Sharma.
Khokar, a PhD scholar at Lucknow’s Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, had recently sold his agricultural land in Baghpat’s Mukundpur village for around Rs one crore and loaned Rs 40 Lakhs to Sharma from this amount for business purpose, Deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Iraj Raja said.
Sharma, with an intention to get the rest of the money, hatched a plan to kill Khokar, he said.
On October 5, he strangled Khokar and severed his body in three parts using a saw, which he had purchased before carrying out the murder, the DCP said.
He later stuffed the body parts in polythene bags and threw them in the Ganga canal near Khatauli, Masuri and at Eastern Peripheral Expressway, he said.
Sharma then started withdrawing money using Kokar’s debit card and kept using his mobile phone to hide the murder, the DCP said.
When Khokar’s cousin Sanjiv could not reach him, he visited his rented accommodation and discovered that he is missing for the last two months, he said.
Following this, Sanjiv filed a missing report at Modinagar police station on December 12.
After investigation, police detained Sharma for interrogation during which he confessed to killing Khokar. He was arrested along with Pravesh, the DCP said, adding further investigation is underway.
