When policemen arrived at an apartment in DLF Ankur Vihar in Ghaziabad on May 8, they were hit by a stench. Inside, they found a man’s body. His wrists and feet were tied and he was gagged with his own shirt. He had been strangled. Nobody knew the man. A resident had called the police because the smell had made it unbearable for neighbours. The flat, police learnt, belonged to a woman and had been vacant ever since she moved to Delhi. The story behind the murder started to unfold, police said, when they asked the flat owner to come in. She identified the dead man as Sakendra, police said. She had given him the keys to the flat to “do some repairs and clean the place”. He did all sorts of jobs, she told police. He was a dailywage labourer, at times a rookie carpenter, and even a mason. “Once we started to crack the case, the details were unusual,” DCP (Rural) Ghaziabad Vivek Chandra Yadav told The Indian Express. “. the two men had a sexual encounter after meeting on a dating app. The accused murdered the other man as he believed the latter had recorded a video.” Police then scanned Sakendra’s call detail records and found his phone had been switched off for six days. His last call was on May 2. When they traced this call, it led them to Faeem, a 38-year-old dailywage labourer in Delhi. Simultaneously, police scanned CCTV footage of a camera installed in a building opposite the vacant flat at DLF Ankur. “Footage showed Sakendra and another man, Faeem, entering the flat building on May 2.,” a police officer privy to the probe said. The officer said investigators initially suspected “personal enmity” as the motive for the murder and picked up Faeem from Delhi’s Shahdara. “During questioning, he claimed he murdered Sakendra,” a police officer said. Police also raided his room in Jafrabad and recovered Sakendra’s phone. Faeem, police said, had met Sakendra on a dating app called Blued. He had been using the app for two months and connected with Sakendra a week before the murder, they said. A resident of Sambhal, Faeem had moved to Delhi for work six years ago. He told police he and his wife were estranged and two months ago, she left him and took their three children. Police claimed Faeem wanted to hide his identity on the app and had procured a new number using a friend’s ID. Sakendra, 45, came to Delhi from his village in Bihar’s Motihari eight years ago for work. He too was married with four grown-up children. His wife, police said, had left him years ago. He was living in a rented room near Shahdara. “The two men decided to meet (on May 2). Sakendra invited Faeem to the flat,” police said. CCTV footage, police said, revealed that after they arrived around noon, Faeem came out at 3 pm and returned with some eatables. After a few hours, he went out again and never returned. Sakendra didn’t come out at all,” police said. When they questioned Faeem, police claimed he told them “Sakendra wanted him to spend more time. but he wanted to leave. To force Faeem to change his mind, Sakendra told him he had recorded videos. and would make them public if he didn’t listen.” “Faeem was furious… he overpowered Sakendra and strangled him with his shirt.,” police claimed. He has been sent to judicial custody.
