Man arrested for rape, murder of 100-yr-old

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, August 10

Almost two years after a 100-year-old woman was murdered after being raped at Daun Kalan village, 15 km from Patiala, the Patiala Sadar police on Friday cracked the case with the arrest of a 38-year-old man from the same village. The man lived a life of a vagabond and managed to hoodwink the police for almost two years.

On September 26, 2016, family members of the woman had found the half-naked body of her on the cot with blood all over the mattress. Family members had told the police that she used to sleep outside the house. At 5 am, a neighbour noticed blood under her cot and raised an alarm.

“She was lying half-naked on the cot with blood all over and when we trailed the blood stains, her clothes were found from nearby fields,” her grandson had told the police in his statement.

“Almost a year back when I took over as the Sadar police station SHO, I saw this murder case file which had many things pending in terms of investigation. It was a challenging case as all we had as a clue just a vague picture of footprints found near the crime spot,” said SHO, Sadar, Jaswinder Tiwana. “When I developed these footprints on a bigger canvass, the foot size seemed to be 12, an unusually big size for anyone. I sent a team to Daun Kalan village and the nearby six villages to see how many men had this big a feet and then shortlisted a few who do not wear any footwear,” he stated.

“We found that Daun Kalan village resident Avtar Singh was missing a few days after the murder and seen very rarely in the village,” he said. “Our efforts to trace him proved futile as he lived life of a vagabond. Recently an informer tipped me that Avtar was seen sleeping on a footpath outside Gurdwara Dukhniwaran Sahib in Patiala,” he said.

Finally, on Friday Avtar was traced in the wee hours. His preliminary grilling revealed that he worked for some time with eunuchs near Gharuan in Mohali and then shifted with a eunuch as a live-in partner. “He would come to Patiala, eat at the gurdwara, sleep on the footpath, meet some friends and vanish again,” said the police.

Avtar told the police that he was under the influence of drugs and was going out of the village when he saw the elderly woman sleeping alone. “I picked her up and raped her in the nearby fields. However, she recognised me and I had no option but to kill her. I repeatedly hit her with a brick and she died. Later I placed the body back on her cot,” he told the police.