India / Man grows beard, lives as homeless to avoid arrest after killing mother

A month after a 50-year-old woman was battered to death in northeast Delhi’s Meet Nagar, the police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested her 22-year-old son and solved the murder case.

The arrested man allegedly attacked his mother with a pestle after she refused to give him money for buying drugs, the police said.

Investigators said that in order to avoid getting identified and arrested, the man — identified as Ashutosh (single name) — had changed his appearance by growing a long beard, moustache and was living like a homeless in Uttar Pradesh’s Modi Nagar, from where he was nabbed. Ashutosh used to live outside temples, railway stations and beg for food and clothes, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (northeast) Ved Prakash Surya said that on September 17, the Jyoti Nagar police received information from Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital that an assault victim — identified as Shiksha Devi — had been admitted to the hospital in a serious condition by one of her sons, Mukul.

“The woman had been brutally assaulted with a blunt object. She was in a serious condition and unconscious. Four days later, she succumbed. The woman’s other son, Ashutosh, was found to be absconding. He was our prime suspect, as CCTV footage showed him being the last person to have visited the house before the woman was found unconscious,” said Surya.

DCP Surya said that through the suspect’s friends and relatives, it was learnt that he was a drug addict and often found wandering outside temples in Delhi, Haridwar, Modi Nagar and other places.

More than 3,000 pamphlets having the suspect’s photo and details were pasted in such areas, he said.

On Monday, the investigating team received information that the suspect was seen in Modi Nagar. Five teams reached there and began a search operation. After five to six hours, the police identified and nabbed Ashutosh, who had grown his beard and hair. “He confessed to the crime when interrogated and also led us to the place where he had thrown the pestle used to kill his mother,” added Surya.

Ashutosh, the DCP said, revealed that on September 17 around 10.30am, he had asked his mother to give him some money. However, despite asking repeated times, his mother did not respond, because she was praying.

“This irked Ashutosh. He picked up a pestle and hit her on the head several times, until she fell unconscious. Ashutosh later panicked and fled,” said an investigator.