Two Pardis arrested for Saket murders

The blood soaked bodies of the elderly couple, their heads smashed with blunt objects, had sent shockwaves across the city. It came two days after a similar incident in the same colony.

DCP (south) P.K. Srivastava says the Guna police assisted their Delhi counterparts in arresting the Pardi youths — Lakhan and Hargovind. The latter have reportedly confessed to their involvement in the murders. Srivastava says the police have recovered almost all the articles robbed from the Jains’ house by the assailants. These articles have been identified by the Jains’ daughters.

Investigations have revealed that the Pardi youths had assembled in village Kherja on December 23, 1998, before leaving for Delhi. In Delhi, they put up in Dakshinpuri with some acquaintances — also Pardis — from a neighbouring village.

Srivastava says that on December 25 the group visited the Saket Colony during the day and chose house number M-73 because it was adjacent to a drain and would be an easy getaway. “Three of them, identified as Vijay, Suraj and Tenny, even watched a movie during the day,” he says.

In the night, they assembled at a graveyard in Pushp Vihar, where they fashioned wooden sticks from freshly-cut branches of a Keekar tree. Around midnight they reached the Jains’ flat using the drain alongside the apartment complex.

After breaking into the house and bludgeoning the Jains to death, they ransacked the house and took away whatever they assumed was valuable, says Srivastava. They reached their village three days later, where they distributed the looted goods among themselves. Then they reportedly stole a goat from the Nuts, slaughtered it and celebrated. But the village panchayat had to intervene when the Nuts raised objections.

This, says Srivastava, was a vital clue for the Guna policemen and their Delhi counterparts, who had been camping in the area after the incident.