After evading arrest for over 20 years, murder case accused held in Surat: Cops

According to the officials at the Balasinor Taluka Police station in Mahisagar, Solanki, a resident of Bhathla village in Balasinor taluka –then located in Kheda district –was accused of hacking to death a villager identified as Salim Haji Shamshuddin Chippa (27) in January 2001. He had allegedly planned Chippa’s murder with the help of his wife, Leela, and brother Kirtansinh as Leela had complained about Chippa pursuing her to “rekindle their old relationship”.

In his statement to police after his arrest, Solanki said he had consciously refrained from leaving any identity trail with government identification documents or bank accounts.

Police Inspector MV Bhagora of Balasinor Rural police station told The Indian Express, “He told

us that he decided not to enrol for Aadhaar card and other such documents as Aadhaar was increasingly being linked to various government services. For nearly 15-17 years, he lived without a mobile phone and only about five years ago, he got himself a simple handset without GPS so that the police are unable to track him… He had not established contact with anyone in Bhathla or opened social media accounts. His children and wife have their documents, he said.”

A team of eight police personnel from the Balasinor Taluka police station was involved in the operation to nab the murder accused.

Over the years, Solanki drove a tempo to earn a living. He was said to have lived in Baben village in Bardoli taluka of Surat district for the last two decades after being on the run.

Balasinor Taluka Police station, under whose jurisdiction Bhathla village falls, chanced upon Solanki’s location during its special drive to track down “wanted accused” in the district which kicked off August 19, at the direction of Mahisagar Superintendent of Police Jaydeepsinh Jadeja.

“The accused had absconded immediately after the murder in 2001 although his wife and brother had been arrested… They were acquitted sometime during the course of the trial but Solanki, the prime accused, had eluded arrest. During the 22 years, he did not visit Bhathla even once nor did he establish contact with any relative or villager… Almost everyone presumed he may have killed himself too. His wife too had returned to her maternal home in Dakhariya village nearby. However, when we launched the manhunt we learnt that Leela has been frequently travelling to South Gujarat, spending several months living there,” Bhagora said.

Leela’s family had concealed, Bhagora added, her Bardoli address from neighbours and acquaintances by saying that she was travelling to “work as a labourer”. However, on following Leela, the Mahisagar district police were stunned to find her living with her fugitive husband and their two sons, aged 19 and 17.

“The common word in the villages was that Leela, being lonely after her husband went missing in 2001, was wandering to work as a labourer in South Gujarat. When we followed her, we realised that she was living in Baben village. Although we had no recent photograph of Solanki, we ascertained that it was indeed the same man. So, on Sunday night, we knocked at their rear door as they kept the front door locked from the outside. We posed as customers needing emergency tempo service. When Solanki emerged from his house to attend to ‘customers’, we nabbed him,” Bhagora said.

According to Bhagora, Leela had been accused of calling the victim to the spot where Solanki was allegedly lying in wait to attack him with an axe. “The murder was brutal. The accused had attacked the victim’s face nine times and then strangled him to ensure that he died. He had also inflicted wounds on the body,” Bhagora added.

The Balasinor rural police station on Monday handed over Solanki’s custody to the Balasinor town police station, where the 2001 case is currently registered after the creation of the Mahisagar district in 2014. Solanki was formally arrested and produced in a local court on Tuesday under Indian Penal Code Section 302 for murder.