Live-in partner plotted civil services aspirant’s murder over hard disk

The hard disk containing private photos of a forensic science student, which led her to murder a 32-year-old civil services aspirant, had similar photos of at least 15 women, investigators revealed on Tuesday.

Amrita Chauhan (21), her former boyfriend Sumit Kashyap (27) and their associate Sandeep Kumar (29) strangled Ramkesh Meena, a civil services aspirant, to death earlier this month, and poured oil, ghee and wine on his body to ensure it burned completely. Meena had allegedly refused to delete her private photos and videos from his hard disk.

She then used her forensic science knowledge to stage the incident as an accidental fire, a senior police official said.

Meena’s charred body was recovered on October 6 from a flat in north Delhi’s Timarpur area after a massive blaze. As the police started investigating the case, a chilling conspiracy came to light.

Meena’s live-in partner Amrita Chauhan, her ex-boyfriend Sumit Kashyap and their common friend Sandeep Kumar were arrested for allegedly killing him and staging the fire to make it look like an accident.

Three weeks after his death, Amrita told the police that she plotted Meena’s murder because he had recorded her private videos and stored them in a hard disk. She repeatedly asked him to delete the videos, but he refused. Getting the hard disk was among the key motives behind the crime. Now, the police have found that it contained private videos of several other women, apparently stored without their consent.

Amrita’s phone was switched off after the incident. Following several raids, the police arrested her on October 18. During interrogation, she identified the co-accused - her ex-boyfriend Sumit and friend Sandeep. Sumit was arrested on October 21 and Sandeep on October 23.

Amrita told the police that Meena had stored her private videos in a hard disk and refused to delete them. When she shared this with Sumit, he was enraged, and the two plotted Meena’s murder.