Ghaziabad man kills tenant for Rs1 crore, chops body into three pieces

Copycat murder is increasingly making headlines after the gruesome killing of Shraddha Walkar by her partner Aftab Poonawala even there is a trail of such incidents over the decades.

A rash of somewhat similar killings has come to fore from the state of Uttar Pradesh where  a landlord allegedly killed his tenant, a PhD scholar named Ankit Khokhar and chopped his body into three pieces. Ankit hailed from Baghpat district of the state.

There is a sense among a set of psychiatrists and media experts that the criminals love for media gaze is partly responsible for this.

“Copycat murder and suicides are real. The media spreads the contagious behaviour: imitation,” wrote Loren Coleman, a cultural behaviourist who studied how media’s saturated coverage of crimes impacted people, according to BBC.

However, some believe that the purpose behind such acts is to hide the crime.

Tenant a PHd Scholar

The 40-year-old man was allegedly murdered by his landlord in Ghaziabad’s Modinagar two months ago and his body was dismembered into three pieces and disposed of on the night of October 6. The landlord, Umesh Sharma, a resident of Radha Enclave, and another man, Pravesh Kumar Sharma (42), a resident of Bisrakh in Gautam Budh Nagar, were arrested in connection with the murder on Wednesday evening, police officers said.

The FIR in the case was registered for abduction on December 12 after the friends of the deceased man, Ankit Khokhar, failed to contact him. The deceased man was pursuing a Phd from BR Ambedkar University in Lucknow, police said.

“Khokhar became friendly with his landlord and disclosed that he received ₹1crore for the sale of his land. The landlord later took a loan of ₹40lakh from him. He then strangled Khokhar in his room and dismembered his body into three parts on the night of October 6. We have recovered some forensic evidence from the scene of the crime and also the saw used to cut the body,” said Iraj Raja, DCP (rural).

Umesh said he packed the deceased man’s head in a plastic bag and his legs and other parts in two other plastic bags, police officers said, according to Hindustan Times.

Two of the bags were disposed of in a canal in Khatauli in Meerut district and Muradnagar in Ghaziabad, while the third was thrown near the eastern peripheral expressway in Ghaziabad. Police said they are trying to find the body parts as well as the car in which Umesh travelled to these locations.

After the murder, Umesh withdrew ₹20lakh using Khokhar’s cards and codes in different denominations through online banking and ATMs, police officers said.

After two months of investigation, the police on Wednesday arrested a man for allegedly killing his tenant, chopping up his body, and disposing of it across the state.