Police in UP's Ghaziabad district arrested Umesh Sharma on Wednesday in a murder case that took more than two months to solve. Sharma is accused of killing his tenant, Ankit Khokar, and dismembering and tossing Khokar's body parts into a canal.
The murderer was reportedly after the victim's recently sold ancestral land in Baghpat, which netted him Rs 1 crore. Additionally, Parvesh, the killer's friend, was detained.
Ankit Khokar was a PhD student enrolled at a university in Lucknow who had lived alone ever since his parents passed away a few years ago.
The police only became involved when his friends made an effort to locate him because they felt something was amiss when he didn't return their calls for several weeks. They noticed that the conversational tone wasn't his when they started getting messages from his number and that calls were still going unanswered.
The now-arrested landlord, whose wife Ankit Khokar had referred to as his "sister" and to whom he had loaned 40 lakh rupees, told them that he, too, had no idea where he had gone.
"He withdrew ₹ 20 lakh from the victim's accounts in batches using his ATM card. For more, he gave the card to his friend Pravesh and told him to make withdrawals in Uttarakhand. He also told him to take the victim's mobile phone with him to mislead investigations if and when he's reported missing," said Iraj Raja, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ghaziabad Rural.
Using a saw, he cut Ankit Khokar's body into at least three pieces, which he then wrapped in aluminum foil, according to the police, who have recently learned of his murder on October 6. He allegedly threw three pieces: one in the Mussoorie canal, one at Khatauli in Muzaffarnagar, and one on a highway.
