How switching on a stolen phone to book hotel room landed a couple behind triple murder in Delhi police net

They placed beedi packets, butts of cigarettes, and two glasses with small portions of alcohol inside Nautiyal’s room besides planting a packet of condoms under her pillow, said police.

On the run, the accused couple switched on a phone stolen from the house for a few minutes, which led the police to their location: A hotel in Gurgaon.

Following the arrest, police pieced together the events of the fateful night. Said a senior officer investigating the case: “Sehrawat had already done a recce of the flat and identified the escape routes. On June 17, she suddenly visited the elderly couple, almost four years after not being in touch, and stayed the night on the pretext of some personal work. A few days later, she came again, this time with Bhatt on a bike, which the duo parked deliberately away from the glare of security cameras.”

Sehrawat then rang the doorbell and entered the Mathurs’ flat, around the time Shashi was about to go to bed after taking her medicines. She asked the attendant to serve tea to Sehrawat, the officer said.

Sehrawat then convinced the attendant to let Bhatt in. “As Bhatt entered the flat, and Nautiyal went to the kitchen to make tea for them, the couple gagged her and stabbed her on the neck from the back multiple times…they then went to the elderly couple’s bedroom, where both were sleeping, and gagged Vishnu and Shashi one after the other before stabbing them multiple times,” the officer said.

The three bodies were discovered by the couple’s house help the next day, said the officer.

“After the murders, the duo stole Vishnu’s gold chain, a diamond ring, and Shashi’s bangles worth Rs. 98,000 using a key attached inside the chord of Vishnu’s chain…after quickly changing their blood-stained clothes into new ones, the duo left with Sehrawat’s face wrapped with a scarf and Bhatt wearing a helmet,” another officer said.

On the cigarette butts and condom packet found around the first-floor flat, police said, “They did this with the intention to mislead the police into investigating a close family member or acquaintance since the entry was a friendly one.”

On the motive behind the murder, police said Sehrawat and Bhatt had hatched the conspiracy around 10 days before the murder after suffering huge losses in their business venture of running a restaurant and a paying guest accommodation. They considered the elderly couple an “easy target” as Sehrawat’s mother used to be Shashi’s colleague at the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and she knew about their wealth, then DCP (Crime) Rajesh Deo had said.

Once fleeing from the crime scene, the accused couple stayed at different hotels in Gurgaon to evade police. “We spoke to the elderly couple’s daughter who then told us that Sehrawat had visited their home after years of staying out of touch. The needle of suspicion then turned on her,” said an officer.

Police then started tracking Vishnu’s phone which had also been stolen by the couple after the murder. “We didn’t get any leads as the phone remained switched off. But two days following the incident, the phone was switched on for 10 seconds with a new SIM card to book a hotel in Gurgaon on an online travel website…this turned out to be beneficial for us as we managed to trace their location to a hotel in Gurgaon from where they were arrested three days after the murder,” added police.

Police found traces of Bhatt’s blood matching with the remnants of beedi recovered from Nautiyal’s room, and the condoms with the remaining condoms the couple had apparently dumped in Sushant Lok in Gurgaon.

Police said Manoj had a criminal background as was accused of killing his wife in 2010. After serving a jail term of five years, he was acquitted after the charges were not proven. Sehrawat, who had started living with Bhatt in 2017, had a diploma in hotel management. She had been married twice previously, Deo had said at the time.