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Journalism of Courage
A 19-year-old man with a tattoo of a demon and five skulls emblazoned on his chest walked into a police station in Jabalpur, filled with cops who have been on his trail for over a year.
He introduced himself as the suspect behind the killings of a 52-year-old man and his 8-year-old son in Jabalpur. Just a day ago, his 15-year-old “girlfriend” – whose father and younger brother were the two victims – was caught by the police in Haridwar.
According to investigators, the teenage couple, who allegedly carried out the murder together, managed to evade multiple teams of the Jabalpur police in a chase spanning 8,500 kilometres over the past two months.
“When the Haridwar police apprehended the girl, her companion managed to flee the spot. He then turned up at the local police station in Jabalpur and surrendered. He has confessed to the murders. We found a tattoo of five human skulls on his chest, which the minor girl says was meant to signify the people responsible for his imprisonment in a POCSO case and were on his target. One of them was the father. We will take him on remand and ask the Juvenile Justice Board to try the minor girl as an adult. They were cold-blooded and planned everything meticulously – until everything went wrong,” Jabalpur Superintendent of Police Aditya Pratap Singh told The Indian Express.
Things were set in motion in September last year, when the girl’s father allegedly pressured her to file a POCSO case against the 19-year-old. The family also sent the girl away to Itarsi, and spoke to the boy’s father to keep him away from her.
“But they began speaking to each other again with the help of an app called ‘Moj’. They conspired to murder her father, whom they felt was coming in the way of their relationship,” Singh said. The girl’s mother died two years ago.
According to the police, the two allegedly planned to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. On March 15, while the girl was at home, the 19-year-old entered through the balcony and allegedly killed her father with an axe. Hearing his cries for help, the 8-year-old boy roused from his sleep, and began screaming. To silence the child, the accused allegedly killed him too.
This was not part of the plan.
“They had planned to use a gas cutter to chop the (man’s) body into little pieces and dispose of it later. However, on seeing the amount of blood, they were stunned and realised that disposing of a body was easier said than done. They covered the father’s body in plastic and used agarbatti to mask the stench. They stuffed the boy’s body inside the fridge,” Singh said.
While they were there, a milkman rang the bell, and they opened the door to receive the milk. Later, they sat at home for two hours, contemplating their next move. The first thing they did was make a series of transactions from the father’s bank accounts to stock up on money and plan their escape. They left with around Rs 1.5 lakh, police said.
The police say they were “highly committed” and the man had planned to take the blame for the murder. Afterwards, the girl also sent a voice note to her cousin blaming him for the killing.
After the double murder came to light – the girl’s uncle found the home locked and called the police – the girl was initially suspected to be missing. Later, CCTV footage emerged of the two teens walking together, holding hands, and the girl became a prime suspect in the case.
According to investigators, the duo first went to the railway station with a scooter, which they ditched. Next, they took a bus and went to Katni, around 95 kilometres away, hoping to shake the police off their tail. In the coming days, they went to Indore, Pune and then Bengaluru, where they stayed at a friend’s home.
“The friend got to know of the murder and asked them to leave. The accused left the murder weapon here. We are verifying these facts,” said a senior officer.
Turned away by their friend, the couple headed to Odisha, Kolkata, Guwahati, Jhansi, Mathura, Vrindavan and Chandigarh, travelling by train and not staying in one place for more than a few days. “They spent their whole time just travelling on trains. That was their life at the time,” Additional Superintendent of Police Sonakshi Saxena said.
Another officer said, “They spent most of their money on travel and lodging. We were always just one step behind them. They were initially withdrawing money from a bank account, but we asked the bank to lower the amount they could pull out. They got spooked and stopped withdrawing money,” the officer said.
The duo also stayed in Amritsar, where they slept and ate at local gurdwaras. According to the police, Haridwar was meant to be their last stop before settling down in a big city like Bengaluru and finding a job.
By the time the girl was apprehended by the police, their relationship had developed cracks, officers said.
“The man was addicted to playing first-person shooter games on his phone. He surrendered after he ran out of money. Plus, he did not want the girl to shift the entire blame on him. He came to us to tell his side of the story and to ensure she doesn’t escape justice,” Singh said.
