23-Year Chase In 2002 Delhi Double Murder Case Ends With 2 Arrests

In a major breakthrough, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police cracked a decades-old double murder case by arresting two fugitives who had been on the run since the brutal killing of a woman and her two-year-old daughter in Sarita Vihar in 2002, the police said on Friday.  

The duo — one a Proclaimed Offender for 23 years and the other a convicted killer who jumped parole 18 years ago — has finally been brought to justice.

The arrested men have been identified as Amalesh Kumar, a resident of Shivhar district in Bihar, and Sushil Kumar, the co-accused who was earlier awarded death penalty by the trial court that was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court.

Amalesh, who vanished shortly after the January 28, 2002 murders, had remained elusive for over two decades.

Declared a Proclaimed Offender, he was traced to Jamnagar, Gujarat, where he was working as a labourer under a false identity. Crime Branch teams tracked him through a mix of technical analysis and ground Intelligence, cracking a trail that had gone cold for years.

“His apprehension is a powerful message that the long arm of the law eventually reaches every criminal, no matter how discreetly they hide,” the police said in its Press note.

Sushil Kumar, who was convicted for the murders and jumped parole in 2007, was arrested from Lalgarh village near the Indo-Nepal border. Police said he had travelled across Karnataka, Gujarat, and Maharashtra over the years, frequently changing locations to avoid detection.

The murder case dates back to January 2002, when complainant Anil Kumar returned to his home in Madanpur Khadar to find the house ransacked and the bodies of his 22-year-old wife Anita, and their two-year-old daughter Megha, lying in the kitchen with multiple stab wounds.

The investigation later revealed the motive to be business rivalry, as both accused were jealous of the complainant's flourishing tailoring trade.

“He disclosed that he, along with his associate Amalesh Kumar, had committed the murders with a knife. He further revealed that the motive was business rivalry (Tailoring work), as the complainant, Anil Kumar, was getting more business than him,” the police said.

“On sustained interrogation both the accused persons have admitted their involvement in the above murder case. Subsequently they have been booked under appropriate sections of law,” said DCP Pankaj Kumar.

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