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Three days after a decapitated body of a man with his head and fingers chopped was found stuffed in a bag in Adarsh Nagar of Ludhiana on July 6, the Ludhiana police Sunday said that the blind murder was solved with the arrest of a history-sheeter from Bihar who wanted to “fake his own death”.
Police said that the accused had committed at least four such killings in the past too in Bihar and Mohali.
Police said that the accused and his wife brutally chopped vthe ictim’s head and fingers with an iron saw before stuffing his body in a bag. Ludhiana police commissioner Mandeep Singh Sidhu said that the decapitated body a bracelet which had Pankaj written on it and an Aadhar card was also found in clothes which had name of Pankaj Sharma (32) of Singhpura, Kurali of Mohali district.
While initially the police assumed that the murdered man was Pankaj and started looking for the accused, during investigations it came out that Pankaj Sharma of Madhepura, Bihar and current resident of Kidwai Nagar, Ludhiana, was in fact a serial killer and a hardcore criminal who had committed at least four murders in the past too.
The deceased was identified as Ram Prasad, 40, a native of Uttar Pradesh and current resident of Mohalla Jagdishpura, Tajpur road, Ludhiana. Police said that Pankaj befriended Prasad as he was looking for a person whose looks and physique matched him. CP Sidhu said that Pankaj wanted to fake his own death so that all previous cases registered against him would be closed. “He was a kind of serial killer who committed four killings in the past,” said CP.
“Pankaj conspired with his wife Neha to find someone who looked like him. So he befriended Ram Prasad and got him a rented accommodation near his own room. On July 3, they invited him to their place, made him consume liquor, tied his hands and legs, and then applied Fevicol on his lips so that he can’t speak. Then they took an iron saw and brutally chopped his head and finger. They then put Pankaj’s wallet, Aadhar card, driving license in Prasad’s pocket, packed the body in multiple layers of plastic and cloth bags, sealed it with tape and disposed in Adarsh Nagar where Pankaj lived earlier on rent,” said CP Sidhu.
DCP (rural) Jaskiranjit Singh Teja said that police grew suspicious that the body wasn’t of Pankaj after Aadhar card and bracelet with name were found inside. “The killer who removed victim’s head and chopped his fingers to conceal identity cannot make mistake of leaving behind ID proofs. We then took that Aadhar card and enquired from locals who identified that photo as that of Sanjay not Pankaj. We then understood that he was living with a fake name Sanjay and was still alive,” said DCP Teja, adding that body’s head and chopped fingers were also recovered after Pankaj’s interrogation.
Inspector Sukhdev Singh Brar, SHO division number 7 police station, said that Pankaj’s father Prasadi Sharma was a lineman with PSPCL in Mohali. So, of the four murders he committed in the past, three happened in Mohali. “After Mohali Police started looking for him, he shifted to Ludhiana almost one year back and lived on rent at different places,” said the inspector.
“Initially, he lived in a rented room in Adarsh Nagar. Then he took another room on rent in Kidwai Nagar and recently, he took a room on rent in Jagdishpura after befriending Ram Prasad. He convinced Prasad also to shift to Jagdishpura and then the couple murdered him in their room on the night of July 3. After packing the body in a bag, they went to Adarsh Nagar where Pankaj lived earlier and threw the bag. They dumped the body there so that locals who knew him may tell police that it was Pankaj’s body,” said the inspector.
Police arrested Pankaj (32) and his wife Neha (28), while their three children will be sent to shelter home by the administration, said the inspector adding that Pankaj was arrested from Ludhiana. An FIR under sections 302, 201 and 34 of IPC was registered at division number 7 police station.
Inspector Brar said that in 2018, Pankaj had “murdered his cousin Chintu in Mohali” after he had entered an affair with Chintu’s wife. However, later Chintu’s wife also left Pankaj. “Chintu and his wife had two children whom Pankaj abducted and they started living with him. However, in Bihar, Chintu’s sister filed a police complaint alleging that children were abducted by Pankaj and his father and an FIR was registered. Pankaj’s father was arrested in the case but he was absconding,” said the inspector, adding that both abducted children have also been rescued and they will be handed over to their aunt (father’s sister) who will be coming to Ludhiana from Bihar soon to take away the children. “We have informed Bihar Police that both children have been rescued,” he said.
Inspector Brar further said that Neha was Pankaj’s first wife and the couple had three kids. Later he married Vishakha from Delhi with whom also he had three children. However, Vishakha along with children had left Pankaj. Currently, he was living with Neha, their three children and two abducted ones.
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