Police solve 1991 murder case, arrest absconding accused after 35 years

The Delhi Police cracked a 35-year-old murder case with the arrest of a proclaimed offender who allegedly killed his landlady and injured her son in a robbery case in 1991, an official said on Saturday.

The accused, identified as Chhavi Lal Verma. Police said that he deliberately avoided returning to his native place for years to evade arrest and also skipped major family events, including his children’s marriages.

“The case dates back to August 2, 1991, when a PCR call was received regarding a violent incident at West Vinod Nagar. A police team rushed to the spot and found the woman lying unconscious with multiple stab injuries on her neck, while her son, aged around 18-20 years at the time, had sustained stab wounds on his face,” the police officer said.

Both victims were shifted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, where the woman succumbed to her injuries, while her son survived after treatment. During the investigation, it emerged that Verma, aged around 25 at the time of the incident, was a tenant in the victim’s house in East Delhi’s Trilok Puri area. He had attacked the duo with a sharp-edged weapon, police said.

Police said he targeted the woman with the intention of robbery, believing that she possessed substantial cash as her husband was residing abroad. “When the landlady and her son resisted, he attacked them repeatedly with a chopper and fled,” the officer said.

Following the incident, Verma went into hiding and managed to evade arrest despite efforts by the local police. He was eventually declared a proclaimed offender by a Delhi court on May 10, 1996. “The case remained pending for decades, with the accused successfully staying under the radar by constantly changing his identity and location,” the officer said.

The breakthrough came when a team from the Crime Branch reopened the case and began fresh efforts to trace the accused. A dedicated team was tasked with tracking him down.

Over the past six months, the team worked meticulously, combining technical surveillance with field intelligence. “Officers revisited old case records, tracked down past associates and conducted extensive inquiries in the accused’s native village in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh as well as other locations linked to his relatives,” the officer said. Despite multiple leads turning cold, the team persisted and developed fresh inputs regarding his possible whereabouts.

He is learnt to have moved across several cities, including Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur and Goa, before eventually settling in Punjab. During this period, he frequently changed jobs and identities, working in low-profile roles to avoid attracting attention.