Ahmedabad, March 21 A man allegedly involved in a 2021 murder-robbery case in Chhattisgarh was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch in Gujarat, an official said on Saturday.
Ajaykumar, also known as Laxmisagar or Kimtishree Rajnarayan Mishra, who was wanted in connection with the murder of Shakuntala Devi within the Tikrapara police station limits in Chhattisgarh, was arrested on Friday, the official said.
"Shakuntala Yadav and her younger son, Amit, were involved in a property dispute with her other son, Ajay. They approached Mishra, a known criminal, for help. Mishra was a security guard at the hospital where Amit worked," the official said.
Mishra was offered a sum of Rs 4 lakh to get Ajay out of the disputed property, but the former, who received an advance of Rs 10,000, fled without completing the task, he said.
"Shakuntala and Amit tracked Mishra to his village, demanding either the completion of the task or a refund of the advance. However, four months later, Mishra and his associate, Ketan alias K.T. Ramsundar Tiwari, visited Shakuntala's house in Raipur under the guise of executing the contract. Upon arriving, they discovered that Amit was in jail for a separate offence," the official said.
Seeing Shakuntala alone, Mishra and Tiwari stayed at the house overnight, strangled her, and then fled with Rs 10 lakh in cash and 30-35 tolas of gold, according to the police.
"They sold the gold to a trader in Kaushambi in Uttar Pradesh, and maintained digital silence by stopping the use of mobile phones as well as government ID cards (PAN/Aadhaar) to evade the police. Mishra hid in Goa, then moved to the Naroda area of Ahmedabad in 2022 to stay with his brother, and subsequently moved to Mumbai," the official said.
Acting on technical intelligence and field surveillance, the Ahmedabad crime branch apprehended Mishra, a release said.
The Ahmedabad crime branch is coordinating with the Raipur police for the formal handover and further legal proceedings regarding the 2021 case, it added.