Delhi: An ex-Navy steward who faked his death and had been living under an assumed name has been detained for allegedly killing one man by strangulation and setting two others on fire nearly two decades ago.
Following a tip identifying a person sought for murder in Delhi’s Bawana neighborhood in 2004, Balesh Kumar, now 60, was imprisoned.
According to Delhi Police, Kumar had assumed the pseudonym Aman Singh and worked as a property dealer.
A bleak story of what happened was revealed after Kumar’s detention and before enlisting in the Navy in 1981; Kumar, a native of Haryana, had completed his education up to Class 8. After leaving the Navy in 1996, he entered the transport industry and set up a home in Uttam Nagar in Delhi with his family.
In 2004, Rajesh was strangled in Samaypur Badli in Delhi by Kumar and his brother, Sunder Lal, according to a confession made to the police by Kumar. He said the three had been drinking when a disagreement erupted over an alleged extramarital affair between Kumar and Rajesh’s wife. After the conflict turned physical, Rajesh was killed by being strangled by Kumar and his drunken brother.
After the murder, Kumar came up with a plan to evade prosecution. Under the guise of providing them with work, he hired two laborers, Manoj and Mukesh, from Bihar and lived in Samaypur Badli in Delhi. The group then drove to Rajasthan in a truck that belonged to Kumar’s brother. In Jodhpur, Kumar allegedly lit the vehicle on fire while the two workers were inside and fled with his paperwork. One of the burned bodies was wrongly recognized as Kumar’s when the police arrived on the scene, but the other was left unidentified.
Authorities notified the court that Sunder Lal had been captured and that Kumar was likely dead due to the vehicle fire as Rajesh’s murder case was being prosecuted.
The insurance on the truck had been transferred to Kumar’s wife, who had already collected his life insurance payout and pension benefits. Until his cover was exposed, his previous identity and crimes were securely hidden.
In light of these shocking revelations, the Delhi Police has asked their Jodhpur colleagues to reopen the truck fire investigation.
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