Scratch on arm helps cops nail south Delhi killer

NEW DELHI: A

scratch

on the right arm of the

murderer

, caused during a

scuffle

between him and the 65-year-old woman

found murdered

in her house at

Gulmohar Enclave

on April 23, helped cops

nab him

. The man worked in the colony and needed money for his cousin’s wedding scheduled next month.

DCP (south) Romil Baaniya said that during the probe, the team scanned through CCTV footage from cameras installed at the gate of the colony. They noticed that for the past two months, the accused, Sunny Thakur, had been leaving the colony every day at 5pm empty-handed, except on the day of the murder. “On questioning, he claimed that the bag contained his tools, but could not answer why he never carried them in the past two months,” said Baaniya.

During the interrogation,

cops

also found the scratch on his arm, which Thakur claimed was caused by a rusty pipe. He also claimed he got a tetanus vaccination for it from a local doctor at Badarpur. However, it turned out that Thakur had visited the doctor for the injury, but a day after the murder.

He also claimed that he had seen the victim, Usha Kumar, around 12.30 pm while she was feeding her cats. However, cops found that Kumar was already dead by that time. Thakur was confronted with the evidence after which he confessed to the crime.

During interrogation, he told the cops that his father used to work at the colony for the past 40 years, and he has been accompanying him for the past 15 years. He worked as a plumber, mason and a caretaker of the elderly in the area as well.

On the day of the incident, Thakur found the door to Kumar’s house open as she had returned after visiting a doctor for her fractured hip. Kumar caught him in the act of stealing from the almirah. He tried to strangle her at first but she had hit him with a chair, breaking it into peices. He had then stabbed her and smashed her face with a dumbbell. Thakur then ransacked the room and managed to take some gold bracelets and earnings from the lockers.

Police say that Thakur used to stay with his family members at Badarpur and had shifted to Delhi with his father. The rest of his family stays in Bihar.