Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Four days after a 70-year-old retired IAS officer was brutally murdered at his upscale home, the Bhopal police on Sunday declared a Rs 30,000 reward for the suspect caretaker who remains on the run.
Over 150 personnel spread across 12 specialised teams have launched a four-state manhunt to track down Varun Kumar (33), who allegedly slit former bureaucrat Rakesh Agarwal's throat before fleeing with his phone on September 30, TT Nagar area Assistant Commissioner of Police Ankita Khatarkar told PTI.
Bhopal Commissioner of Police Sanjay Kumar announced a reward of Rs 30,000 for any information on Kumar, she said.
A search has been launched across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, as the suspect had earlier worked in Pune.
Agarwal was found with his throat slit at his residence in the Ratibad area in the early hours of Wednesday. Kumar, a native of Nabha in Punjab's Patiala district, had been hired as a caretaker for Agarwal, who had been unwell, just three days before the crime.
While there were no signs of a struggle at the crime scene, the suspect allegedly tried to set the house on fire after killing Agarwal by disconnecting the gas cylinder pipe and leaving an electric iron switched on nearby, police sources said.
According to investigators, Agarwal's wife gave him medicine around midnight. Kumar was seen outside the couple's sprawling house around 1 am on Wednesday. The house did not have CCTV cameras.
Agrawal, who hailed from Punjab and joined the IAS in 1982 in the Madhya Pradesh cadre, held an LLB, a postgraduate degree in Political Science and an MBA.
During his long career as a bureaucrat, he served in various capacities, including district collector and as secretary and principal secretary of various departments. His last posting was Director General of the RCPV Naronha Academy of Administration in Bhopal.
PTI
