Police have arrested a 36-year-old woman and her lover for allegedly murdering her 65-year-old mother in Uttarakhand’s Raiwala over a dispute involving ancestral property, police said on Saturday.
The investigation revealed that Khajani had a dispute with her daughter, Shilpa Thapa, over ancestral land. Police had registered a case under the relevant section of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against an unknown accused. Police also activated their informant network in Raiwala, Rishikesh and adjoining areas.
Superintendent of Police (Rural 1) Jaya Baluni said that the deceased, Khajani Devi, lived in a rented house in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Colony in Motichur’s Linepar, with her six-year-old granddaughter. “Her son, Sanjay Pundir, lodged a complaint at the Raiwala police station on September 22, saying that his mother had been missing since Monday and the house was locked. At around 10.30 pm, he broke open the lock and found her dead inside the bathroom,” she said. Baluni said police searched around 500 hotels and guesthouses and examined footage from nearly 700 CCTV cameras, including those at bus stands and railway stations.
“Following directions from the Dehradun senior superintendent of police Pramendra Dobhal, six teams were formed to investigate the case,” she said. Baluni said the teams collected forensic evidence and analysed CCTV footage from the crime scene and surrounding routes. His phone was switched off after the incident,” she said. “A tip-off led police to Shantikunj in Haridwar, where Pandey was arrested on Friday,” Baluni said.
“Police also found that Shilpa’s acquaintance and partner, Shiv Narayan Pandey alias Sonu, who worked in Mumbai, was near Khajani’s house before the murder.
