Two weeks after a final-year law student was found buried in the basement of a house in Ghaziabad, police have arrested the victim’s former landlord, his wife and their daughter for the murder. Police said the victim’s relationship with the landlord’s daughter drove them to commit the crime. According to police, the accused — the landlord Munna, his wife Sulekha and their 19-year-old daughter — were returning to Ghaziabad thinking that they had thrown cops off their trail, when they were arrested at Sahibabad railway station. The victim, Pankaj (27), had gone missing after Dussehra. His body was found a week later in the basement of the landlord’s house, buried in a freshly plastered six-foot-deep pit. Initially, an FIR had been filed against Munna and his family in which it was alleged that they murdered him to take over his internet cafe business. “After Pankaj’s body was found, several teams were making efforts to trace Munna’s family as they had left immediately after a missing persons complaint was filed. Munna travelled to Bihar and Jharkhand as he waited for things to cool down. When caught, he confessed that the relationship between Pankaj and his daughter led him to hatch the conspiracy,” said Manish Mishra, SP City Ghaziabad. A law student from IME Ghaziabad, Pankaj was Munna’s tenant for a brief period in September before he shifted to another house in the same colony. Pankaj ran an internet cafe and also taught Munna’s children. “Initially, the daughter resisted Munna’s plan. But with time, Munna convinced her that she had been tricked. A week prior to the crime, Munna began planning and she became a co-conspirator,” said Manish Mishra. Pankaj last spoke to his brother on October 8. The next morning, Munna’s daughter called Pankaj to her house and he reached at 10 am. Police said Munna chose this time as his other two children had gone to school. As he entered, Pankaj was allegedly ambushed by Munna and Sulekha, while their daughter helped tie him up. He was allegedly choked to death by Munna and his body buried in the basement. A few days later, police, during their probe, noticed the fresh patch of cement in Munna’s basement and dug it up to find Pankaj’s body.
