Man steeped in debt stages own murder

Lucknow: Acting on an SOS from a man about his missing brother’s last location on a highway near the Hardoi-Shahjahanpur distrct border, police were jolted into action and zeroed in on the spot only to find a near-charred human

dummy

tied to the seat belt inside a blue-tint car with a Navi Mumbai registration number. A forensic unit was swiftly dispatched to preserve the crime scene in Shahabad village, followed by a Hardoi police team comprising ASP, Kapil Singh Dev, two deputy SPs and four separate police teams late Saturday.

The man, who installed his dummy to stage his own murder was neck-deep in debt and was later tracked down and arrested in Haryana, said police.

Forensic teams did not find any bloodstains in the vehicle, but portion of the front seat and the blanket-wrapped dummy was found partially burnt.

Cops found the dummy clothed in jeans, T-shirt and a pair of socks rolled on its plastic foot. Two pair of clothes and a bag was also recovered from the rear seat.

ATM cards, Aadhar card, and an ID of a private company seized from the car helped police identify the man who tried to stage his own murder as Sachidanand Pandey, originally a resident of Azamgarh, said SP, Hardoi, Anurag Vats. The officer said the missing report was lodged by one Dayananda Pandey, who claimed to be Sachidanand’s brother.

“Our surveillance unit and special operations group tracked down Sachidanand in Rohtak, where he was arrested late Saturday. A team has been dispatched to bring him to Hardoi for questioning,” the officer said.

SHO, Shahabad, Shivshankar Singh, said on basis of preliminary investigations, it was found that Sachidanand drove 2,000km after beginning his journey from Mumbai. He entered Surat and then reached Uttar Pradesh via Jaipur and then was caught in Haryana.

“We studied his case history and found he lost his job during the pandemic-induced lockdown and was trapped in debt. And this forced him to stage his own killing,” said Singh. Senior police officers said, Sachidanand will squeal during interrogation and we will come to know his real story.