Representative image of being arrested.
Credit: iStock Photo
A 19-year-old youth surrendered for his crimes to the police by walking into a Jabalpur police station, according to a report by The Indian Express.
The youth was the suspect behind the murder of a 52-year-old man and his 8-year-old son, along with his 15-year-old girlfriend who was caught in Haridwar.
The girl along with the youth committed the murders of her father and younger brother, following which they dodged a police chase of about 8,500 km for about 2 months.
Jabalpur Superintendent of Police Aditya Pratap Singh told The Indian Express, "When the Haridwar police apprehended the girl, her companion managed to flee the spot. He then turned up at the local police station in Jabalpur and surrendered. He has confessed to the murders. We found a tattoo of five human skulls on his chest, which the minor girl says was meant to signify the people responsible for his imprisonment in a POCSO case and were on his target. One of them was the father."
"We will take him on remand and ask the Juvenile Justice Board to try the minor girl as an adult. They were cold-blooded and planned everything meticulously – until everything went wrong," Singh added.
The built up for the revengeful murders started when the girl's father had allegedly pressurised her to book a POCSO case against the youth, in September 2023.
The girl was sent away to Itarsi by her family who, warned the youth's father to ask him to stay away from the her.
According to The Indian Express, Singh said, "But they began speaking to each other again with the help of an app called ‘Moj’. They conspired to murder her father, whom they felt was coming in the way of their relationship."
According to the police, the teen couple had allegedy planned to make the crime look like a robbery gone wrong. The youth entered the girl's house through the balcont on March 15 and killed her father using an axe.
The youth killed the girl's younger brother too who was awakened by his father's cries and had started screaming, which was the originally the plan to the couple.
According to the publication, Singh said, "They had planned to use a gas cutter to chop the (man’s) body into little pieces and dispose of it later. However, on seeing the amount of blood, they were stunned and realised that disposing of a body was easier said than done. They covered the father’s body in plastic and used agarbatti to mask the stench. They stuffed the boy’s body inside the fridge."
A milkman had come to deliver milk which the couple received, after which they sat for 2 hours planning their next move.
The made transactions from the father's bank accounts amounting Rs 1.5 lakh to assure money for their escape.
The polcie concluded that the couple was highly committed as the youth had planned to take all the balme for the murders.
The discovery of the dead bodies was made when the girl's uncle found the home locked and dailed up the police.
A CCTV footage showed the couple had exited the home holding hands, which made the girl the maine suspect in the case.
Initially the couple went a raiwlay station using a two-wheeler, then went to Katni to evade the police.
Then the duo went to Indore, Pune and Bengaluru and stayed at friend's house.
According to the publication, a senior police official said that whenit came to the friend's knowledge about the murders, he asked the couple to leave who had left the murder weapon there itself.
The couple travelled to Odisha, Kolkata, Guwahati, Jhansi, Mathura, Vrindavan and Chandigarh by trains and didn't stay at one place for more than a few days.
According to The Indian Express, Additional Superintendent of Police Sonakshi Saxena said, "They spent their whole time just travelling on trains. That was their life at the time."
Another police officer said, "They spent most of their money on travel and lodging. We were always just one step behind them. They were initially withdrawing money from a bank account, but we asked the bank to lower the amount they could pull out. They got spooked and stopped withdrawing money."
The couple who had also travelled to Amritsar, slept and ate at gurudwaras and according to the police, they had planned there last stop to be Haridwar before settling in Bengaluru and finding a job there.
Singh also said, "The man was addicted to playing first-person shooter games on his phone. He surrendered after he ran out of money. Plus, he did not want the girl to shift the entire blame on him. He came to us to tell his side of the story and to ensure she doesn’t escape justice."