On the run for 15 years, man convicted of killing taxi drivers caught in UP

Police said they arrested Tomar, now 45, from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, where he was living with his wife under a false identity.

Tomar, police said, had been on the run since 2010 after he got out of jail on a month-long parole. He had been in and out of prison since March 2001, when he was arrested for a murder in the Capital’s Ashok Nagar area.

According to the police, a PCR call was received at Ashok Nagar police station on March 17, 2001; the caller said two men were found unconscious in a dump yard in Mayur Vihar. They were taken to the Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital, where one of them died.

“During the investigation, the man who survived said four people attacked him during a taxi ride from Jaipur to Delhi. Two accused persons, Tomar and Dilip Negi, were arrested while the other two, Ajay and Dheeraj, were declared proclaimed offenders. A chargesheet was filed,” said DCP (Crime) Harsh Indora.

“The gang’s modus operandi was to hire taxis from different locations, murder the drivers, rob the vehicles, and subsequently sell them in Nepal. It was also revealed that Tomar, along with his associates, was involved in four cases of murder,” DCP Indora said.

Cases against Tomar and his gang had been lodged in Almora, Haldwani, and Lohaghat in Uttarakhand, police said.

On October 1, 2007, Tomar and Dilip were convicted and sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment by the Karkardooma court. Three years later, Tomar got out on parole.

“Accused Tomar was released on parole on November 3, 2010, for a month while serving his sentence. He had to surrender on December 2, 2010 — but he absconded and remained at large ever since,” DCP Indora said.

Recently, a Crime Branch team led by Inspector Rakesh Kumar, under the supervision of ACP Umesh Barthwal, was tasked with tracking Tomar. “The team visited his last known address at Sikanderpur, Shahjahanpur (UP), but the accused wasn’t there,” the DCP said.

Soon, police realised that the reason Tomar was untraceable was because he wasn’t Tomar anymore. Living under an alias — Rajan Singh — Tomar was making a living at Ekta Nagar in Bareilly by working as a driver for a relative.

“The team learnt that the fugitive was residing in Vir Savarkar Colony, Ekta Nagar, with his wife. A trap was laid and the accused was apprehended,” DCP Indora said.

Tomar hails from Shahjahanpur in UP and is a Class 12th graduate, said police.