The Delhi Police is yet to recover the weapons used by a woman and her son for killing and chopping the body of her husband in east Delhi’s Pandav Nagar area, officials said on November 29.
Anjan Das (45) was killed on May 30 by his wife Poonam (48) and stepson Deepak (25), residents of Kalyanpuri, who were arrested from east Delhi’s Pandav Nagar area on Nov. 28.
A senior police officer on November 29 said that the weapons of murder are yet to be recovered and further investigation is underway. The duo is currently in police custody.
Anjan Das had another family in Bihar
Anjan Das had another wife and children in Bihar and they had no inkling about his disappearance for several months, officials said on Monday.
Das had a wife and eight children in Bihar, a senior police official said, adding that he used to send them money, but not regularly.
The official said as he did not send money at “regular intervals”, his family in Bihar “did not suspect he is missing and no missing complaint was lodged in Delhi or in Bihar”.
The trigger for the grisly crime was the fact that Das had alleged ill intentions towards her stepdaughter and Deepak’s wife as well, and he was also sending Poonam’s earnings to his other wife and eight children in Bihar.
Conspiracy hatched in April
Poonam worked as a domestic help in the area.
In April, Poonam hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Das with the help of her son Deepak, police said, adding that the duo, on May 30, served alcohol laced with sleeping pills to him.
The mother-son stabbed Das with a dagger and a knife over the neck, chest and abdomen, police said, adding that after the murder, the body was kept in a room.
The blood got drained from the body by the next morning and they then started cutting it into 10 pieces and kept them in the fridge. The accused dumped his body parts over the next three to four days, police said.
Though Das was killed on May 30 after being served alcohol laced with sleeping pills, some of his body parts were found stuffed inside a bag at the Ramlila Ground in east Delhi’s Kalyanpuri on June 5, police said.
Over the next few days, his legs, thighs, skull and a forearm were recovered following which a case was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence and giving false information) at the Pandav Nagar Police Station, they said.
They said in a footage from a CCTV camera, which was being circulated on social media, a woman and a man could be seen carrying two bags and entering a deserted place at 12.43 a.m. on June 1, and the leaving after six minutes. This had made investigators suspicious and later, led them to Poonam and Deepak. Poonam had met Das in 2011. He had a rented accommodation in the same building she was living in. When her husband Kallu died in 2016, she started living with Das, according to police.
Later, she came to know that Das was already married and had eight children from his first wife in Bihar, they said, adding that he started stealing jewellery and cash from Poonam and sent it to his first wife, due to which they had quarrels and arguments.
Felt dominted by Das: Deepak
Police said around March or April, Poonam came to know that Das had allegedly tried to molest and sexually assault her divorced daughter as well as Deepak’s wife.
During investigation, Deepak said after his marriage in 2018, he and his wife had a rented a flat in the neighbourhood, they said, adding that the accused said they felt dominated by Das and he used to also take their money.
It was in April, that the mother-son duo hatched a plan to kill Das and on May 30, they served him alcohol laced with sleeping pills. They stabbed him with a dagger and a knife in his neck, chest and abdomen, police said.
The accused cut his body into pieces the next day and drained the blood, they said.
They thought nobody would come to know of the killing as Das’s other family was far away in Bihar and therefore, would not approach authorities. The body was chopped to hide his identity, according to police. Deepak has told police that on the night of the killing he had asked his sister to sleep with his wife and that his wife had no idea of the plan hatched by him and his mother or the incident, they said.
On Monday, police went to some places where Deepak claimed that he had thrown pieces of Das’s body, but nothing was recovered. Till now, six body parts have been recovered and efforts are being made to recover the remaining, an official said.
So far, police have found six body parts. The torso and forearms of the deceased are yet to be recovered.
The case bears eerily similarities with the murder of 26-year-old Shraddha Walkar in the national capital.
Walkar was allegedly killed by her 28-year-old live-in partner Aftab Poonawala after a confrontation who then sawed her body into 35 pieces and kept them in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in south Delhi’s Mehrauli before dumping them across the city. The Delhi Police arrested Poonawala on November 12.