Servant thought dead arrested

By ASIT JOLLY

Chandigarh, May 19: In a dramatic twist to the murder of Chandigarh housewife, Anuradha Sandhu, the police, on Monday, arrested Vijay Kumar alias Nikku, the missing house servant whom they had given up as dead after the recovery of dead body bearing his voter I-card and mobile phone at Ropar on Sunday. The victim’s husband, Mr Balwinder Sandhu has also been arrested and charged.

Nikku, who had enacted the bizarre drama of his own demise by killing a friend and then brutally disfiguring his face beyond possible recognition, was arrested along with an accomplice, Ashok Kumar near Nalagarh Town in Himachal Pradesh.

Chandigarh police teams tracked them down on the basis of their cell phone records for calls made before and after the murder.

The servant, who was clearly a much-pampered employee, told the police he had killed Anuradha on instructions from Mr Balwinder Sandhu, who is a wealthy and well connected property dealer of the city. The booty — Rs 3 lakhs in cash and several pieces of jewellery — he took away was meant to be his payment. He told the police Mr Sandhu had promised to give him even more money once "things have cooled down".

Based on Nikku’s admission and corroborative evidence in the form of mobile phone records and interviews with the couple’s relatives and friends, the police have formally placed Mr Sandhu under arrest and charged him with conspiracy to kill his wife.

Meanwhile, Nikku told the police that he and Ashok had planned Anuradha’s killing several days in advance.

The two had first left Nikku’s younger sister — also a servant in the Sandhu household — back at her family home in Bathinda. On the way back they purchased three heavy-duty paper cutters from a stationary store and then returned to Chandigarh waiting for an opportune moment.