A 25-year-old man who had been a tenant of the family has been arrested for the Sarai Rohilla triple murder of an elderly couple and their son, police said on Monday.
The accused has been identified as Mithlesh Mehto, who was a former tenant of the victims and had left his lodgings around two weeks before the crime, said DCP (North), Madhur Verma.
According to police, Mehto held a grudge against the elderly couple's son, 30-year-old Rakesh. Police said that Rakesh had asked Mehto for a loan and allegedly thrashed him after being refused.
Mehto had left the room after that incident and went to his native village, Khagaria, in Bihar, police said, adding that he returned to Delhi on September 22 to avenge the attack by Rakesh and went to his house the next night pretending to have come for reconciliation.
During their meeting, Mehto allegedly offered Rakesh a soft drink laced with a sedative. Once Rakesh dozed off, Mehto tied his limbs with a nylon rope and allegedly slit his throat.
He then went downstairs, where Rakesh's parents lived, and allegedly slit the throats of the couple, who had slept by then, with a knife.
He also ransacked the room and allegedly fled with some jewellery and mobile phones that belonged to the elderly couple.
However, he was spotted by two neighbours while arriving and leaving the premises, police said. After carrying out his alleged crime, Mehto went back to his village, they added.
Mehto covered the victims' body with quilts, opened the windows of the room and switched on the coolers so that the bodies did not quickly decompose, said a police official.
He further said that once police got to know about Mehto's presence on the night of the triple murder, they searched records which showed he was living at the elderly couple's house with no tenant verification having been done.
A police team was later sent to Khagaria and he was arrested from his in-laws' house in the wee hours on Sunday, they said.
Meanwhile, it has also emerged that Mehto was involved in three criminal cases in the past two years, of which two were registered in Uttar Pradesh and the other at Sagarpur police station in Delhi, added DCP Verma.