Man wanted in UP double murder case apprehended in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, Jan 5 (PTI) A 32-year-old man on the run after allegedly killing a woman and her daughter in Uttar Pradesh has been arrested in Ahmedabad, police said on Sunday.

Rajesh Upadhyay had been absconding since the murders in Basti district in Uttar Pradesh last month and was carrying a reward of Rs 50,000, said Bharat Patel, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Crime Branch.

Patel said Upadhyay was one of the eight accused named in a first information report (FIR) registered at Kaptanganj police station for the murder of his stepmother and her daughter in a property dispute.

The Uttar Pradesh police arrested three accused, and Upadhyay is the fourth accused apprehended in the case, he said.

The official said the man was familiar with Ahmedabad, as he had worked in the city and decided to hide here. He was living in Barej village near here.

As per the case details, Upadhyay and seven others murdered Godawari Devi and her daughter Saumya after rendering them unconscious and placing them on a bed before setting them on fire at Setha village on the intervening nights of December 3 and 4.

The murders took place a day before the mother-daughter duo were to depose before a court in a property dispute case, the FIR stated.

Upadhyay and the other accused were not happy with the division of property in the will left by his deceased father, it said.

A case was registered against them under sections 103 (2) (murder committed by a group of five or more people acting in concert), 238 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 326 (g) (mischief by fire or explosion) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS). PTI KA ARU