It was a case of “love, sex and dhokha” which Dhanbad’s Naresh Barnwal sought to project as one of gang rape and murder of wife Suman by road robbers.
That’s what the police say after arresting Naresh, his wife’s cousin Khushboo and one Basant Singh in connection with the killing of Suman, under Halsi police station area near Jamui, on Sunday evening.
Naresh allegedly gave “supari”, or contract, to kill Suman over a year ago because his wife opposed his extra-marital relationship with Khushboo, a Part II student in Gaya, the place Naresh’s in-laws hail from.
According to the police, Naresh’s affair with Khushboo began when she went to Dhanbad to look after Suman during her pregnancy, a year after her marriage four years ago. The relationship turned so passionate that he would even financially help Khushboo’s family as her father, the sole earning member, was a lowly-paid worker in a private firm.
Naresh even consumed sleeping pills when Khushboo broke up with him once because of tensions between her family and Suman’s kinsmen. It was after this incident that the matter of marriage cropped up between the two and the contract killers were assigned the dirty job of removing the stumbling block in the way of their “wish to live together”.
Naresh and his family were at Jamui at the house of Suman’s “mausi”, or mother’s sister, in January last year when Naresh planned to visit Khushboo in Gaya on her birthday on January 29. But Suman played the spoilsport, and they could leave Jamui on January 30. The “supari” killers were waiting in the wings and even swung into action, but they targeted a wrong vehicle and could not execute the killing because of heavy police presence on the Jamui-Gaya Road.
Suman finally was killed. Both Naresh and Khushboo are in judicial custody now. Besides a married man’s lust for another woman, the police furnish the following to support their version of the case:
1. Not only did Naresh delay their departure from Rajgir for Jamui, he drove slowly and stopped the vehicle a couple of times to walk a little away and speak to the criminals over phone.
2. Though six-seven criminals are alleged to have intercepted Naresh’s Zen, only two frail felons forced their entry into the vehicle. One sat beside Naresh’s brother-in-law Rajesh in the front, the other with the women – Suman and Rajesh’s wife – in the rear seat. Naresh was left free to drive as they looted the vehicle occupants. Had Naresh, who is pretty well built, wished, he could have thrown out the two criminals and sped away.
3. When Suman was singled out by one of the two criminals to be dragged by her hair, “well-built” Naresh didn’t even pretend to rescue her. He lied that she was taken far away and shot after half-an-hour or so. The criminals shot her a couple of minutes later in full view of Naresh and others a few metres away.
4. Naresh was an insurance agent, moonlighted as a moneylender and kept the company of petty criminals.
5. Some of the criminals of Jamui-Lakhisarai fled the district earlier. Naresh contacted two of them in Dhanbad but they insisted on killing his wife in their native area because they were familiar and comfortable with the geography.
6. Police are not surprised why the “killer” (Naresh) carried with him a hostile witness (Rajesh) to the spot of crime. It was a calculated move to prevent suspicion against him. That the move boomeranged as Rajesh smelt foul play is a different story.
7. Asked how credible is the claim that Rs 30,000 had been paid to the killers and Rs 40,000 was to be paid on the spot after the crime (in front of the victim’s brother!), police say that’s only a statement made by Naresh. It is yet to be investigated. For that matter, police are also investigating Khushboo’s statement that Rs 2.5 lakh was paid to the killers.
8. Asked why mediamen were not being allowed to meet Naresh and Khushboo, the police say one needs permission from the court to interview them since they are in judicial custody.
9. Asked if call details were procured to substantiate the charge that Naresh was in touch with the criminals, the police say they are on the job.