Kanpur: A 35-year-old woman was killed and her family members, including her spouse and two kids, hailing from Kanpur's Gujaini area, were injured by a neighbouring tenant and his accomplices. They committed the crime under the guise of a religious pilgrimage to Chitrakoot Dham.
The incident occurred when the neighbour, along with his associates, approached the family with a proposal for a spiritual journey to the sacred site.
However, their true intentions were far from pious, as they carried out an attack on the unsuspecting victims.
The woman succumbed to her injuries, while her husband and children were injured. The motive behind the crime is yet to be ascertained as the main accused Tribhuvan (tenant) is still at large.
Suraj Yadav, a resident of Madaripur village in Chaubepur police station area of Kanpur district, lives with his family in a rented house in Gujaini Plot 3-B in the city. He was persuaded by one Tribhuvan, also known as Chacha, who lived in the adjacent room, to go on a trip to Chitrakoot by car.
On September 21, Suraj, along with his wife Aman Yadav (35), son Shiv alias Ramji (10), daughter Pari (two-and-a-half-year), and Tribhuvan and his associate Veer Singh, set out in a rented car driven by Sanjeev Kumar.
Tribhuvan picked up another person from Jolhupur in Jalaun district, whom he referred to as his uncle.
Around midnight, as the car reached the Jariya police station area of Hamirpur, Tribhuvan and his uncle, who were sitting in the back seat, started strangling Suraj and his wife with a cloth. Suraj managed to escape by kicking the car window and jumping out, hiding in the bushes. The attackers stopped the car to search for him but eventually drove away. Near the CHC in Gohand town, they strangled Aman with a belt and threw her body out of the car. They then smashed her head and face with a hammer, hid her body under a culvert, and covered it with bushes.
Later they strangled Suraj's son Ramji, left him for dead in a roadside ditch, and abandoned his daughter Pari at the Jalaun district border before fleeing. Suraj, who had survived by hiding, reached Jariya police station on September 22 morning and filed a kidnapping complaint against four people.
Ramji, who regained consciousness, informed a nearby temple priest about the incident, who then alerted the UP 112 police. The Jariya police, along with Suraj, reached Ramji, and the police from Jalaun district recovered Suraj's minor daughter, abandoned by the roadside.
The police have traced and recovered the car and arrested the driver and Tribhuvan's uncle, Kallu on Sep 23.