NEW DELHI: After an 18-hour manhunt, city police on Sunday morning managed to arrest Major Nikhil Rai Handa, the officer suspected of murdering Shailja Dwivedi (35), the wife of another Major in the
Indian Army, on Saturday afternoon. He was arrested from
Meerut
.
A common friend of the couple, Handa (39) had fallen in love with Shailja during their posting in
Dimapur
,
Nagaland
, and had been pursuing her. Unable to handle rejection, police claimed, he planned to kill her in cold blood. He came to the Army Base Hospital on Saturday to meet her one last time and slit her throat with a knife inside his Honda City car, they said. He then threw her body onto the road and ran her over twice to pass off the death as an accident. Her body was found around 1.28pm near Brar Square,
Delhi Cantt
, on Saturday. TOI was the first to report on Sunday that a Major in the Indian Army was the prime suspect.
Special commissioner (law and order) R P Upadhyay confirmed the developments. "Handa had fled to Meerut after the murder. Six teams were formed to track him down. He was caught after an extensive probe revealed his location," Upadhyay told TOI. The police said Handa had stayed overnight at the Army mess in Meerut and planned to dispose of the car at the local scrap market there. The police pieced together the sequence of events that preceded the murder.
Shailja was not just a homemaker, but also an active participant in social welfare activities. In 2017, she was a finalist at Mrs India Earth pageant, where she won the title of "Mrs Earth Creative" too.
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