How Delhi cops went undercover as Census officials to solve a 40-year-old murder

On that evening of October 19, Prasad, along with two aides, allegedly smashed his wife’s head and face with a brick — he suspected she was having an affair. His three children lay sleeping in another room, Kumar was confined to the house at gunpoint.

Prasad then escaped. He had been declared a proclaimed offender in 1987, and efforts to trace him continued until 1990 before the case went cold.

Over the years, Prasad’s old home was sold. Multiple commercial buildings have now come up at the site. And none of the current residents remember the gruesome crime.

At the time, police had established a motive. They knew that Prasad and his wife fought over his suspicions that she was being unfaithful.

So, it was not an entirely blind case for them. “The main suspect had already been identified but he was never arrested. We had no photograph or any other details except the name of his village, Bhikhani Bigha, in Nalanda,” a police officer involved in the investigation said, adding that the records misspelled the name as Bikani Bigha.

That’s where they started the probe.

Tracking a suspect

A team was formed by DCP (Crime) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav and led by Inspector Sunil Kumar Kalkhande, under the supervision of ACP (Central Range) Satendra Mohan. It comprised SI Birpal Singh and head constables Vijay Singh, Jai Singh, Praveen, Rahul, Samander and Anoop.

A head constable, Raushan, who is from Bihar, was sent to the village as he knew the area but hit a wall initially.

“Relatives and locals told us Prasad no longer lived there. They also claimed they didn’t know where his children were,” an officer said.

Despite the lack of leads, the head constable continued to camp in the village. “A person may migrate anywhere but he rarely cuts off all ties with his hometown. That hunch eventually helped us,” added the officer.

After a week, they got a breakthrough. Someone known to the family told the head constable that Prasad’s children were placed in an orphanage in Bihar by relatives from their mother’s side.

The team then traced the maternal side of the family and obtained details of the children. Police then tracked down one of Prasad’s sons in Delhi. The other son was also living in Delhi with his family, while the daughter was married and living in Bihar.

Investigators discovered that Prasad remained in touch with his sons. “We kept an eye on them because we suspected they were in contact with their father. Their mobile numbers were discreetly obtained and placed under surveillance. While analysing their call detail records, a number appeared repeatedly. We called the number multiple times but it was switched off,” another officer said.

When they checked details of the SIM card, they found it was not registered in Prasad’s name. Police, however, said they grew suspicious after noticing that its location frequently coincided with a factory in Delhi’s Alipur where one of the sons worked.

Police also learnt that the user of the number was an elderly man who periodically travelled from an ashram in Haryana to stay at the factory.

Laying a trap

Police said a trap was laid on April 22. The team members spent at least two hours scouting the factory to ascertain that Prakash was inside.

“We decided to pose as officials conducting a survey for the 2027 Census, since census-related fieldwork had already begun in parts of the city… we didn’t want him to find out we were cops and clam up,” said an officer part of the team.

The policemen began asking workers their names and other details for the ‘survey’. Among them, an 84-year-old man said he was called ‘Chandu Chacha’ by other workers.

“We insisted he tell his full name and other details so we could add it to our records… he managed to call his son and said some government officials had come for a survey…,” the officer said.

By now, the team was suspicious and took Prasad in for questioning — and he eventually admitted to the 1986 crime. He was arrested, produced before a court and handed over to Shakarpur police station.

According to police, Prasad’s son later told investigators that his father had long claimed he had served time for the murder. Although the family believed him initially, they continued to harbour doubts.

Police said Prasad told them that after killing his wife, he fled to Patiala in Punjab, where he worked as a dailywage labourer, before shifting to Moga and later moving across Haryana. He reportedly stayed at different ashrams in Kurukshetra, Panipat and Sonipat over the years.

Police also found that he had sold his ancestral properties in Bihar through relatives and used the money to sustain himself while on the run.

Crime Branch officials said Prasad disclosed during questioning that he remembered little about the case now; his memory had reportedly weakened with age. He claimed the associates who helped him commit the murder had died. So had Kumar, the help he had hired. Police, though, are still trying to trace surviving witnesses linked to the case.

“He admitted that he had become confident he would never be caught after evading arrest for nearly 40 years,” the officer said.