By IANS,
Chandigarh : The murder of a property dealer’s wife at her residence here saw yet another twist – the Chandigarh police Monday claimed to have arrested the domestic help whom it had declared as having been “killed” Sunday.
Chandigarh’s Senior Superintendent of Police S.S. Srivastava announced that Vijay Pal alias Nikku, the domestic help of property dealer Baljinder Singh Sandhu and his murdered wife Anuradha, was arrested Monday from Himachal Pradesh.
Srivastava said that Nikku had said during interrogation that Sandhu had given a contract to kill 33-year-old Anuradha, who used to run a boutique from home, as his relationship with his wife was strained.
The police are not yet ready to believe Nikku all the way, though they have detained Sandhu. They are probing reports that he was friendly some other women.
Anuradha was found murdered in her house in Sector 38-west here late Saturday night while her husband was partying at a local discotheque. Their two children, aged 10 and 8 years, were found locked in another room.
The police had Sunday declared that the defaced body of Nikku was recovered near Ropar town in Punjab, 40 km from here, hours after Anuradha was killed.
But they now claim that the body recovered from Ropar was that of Sunil, a domestic help working in the house adjoining Sandhu’s. Nikku and his accomplice abducted Sunil after slitting Anuradha’s throat and murdered him near Ropar, the police alleged. They later smashed his face with bricks to deface it and make recognition difficult.
They also threw a few identification documents belonging to Nikku along with Sunil’s body in Ropar to hoodwink investigators, said the police.