A seven-year-old boy’s innocent narration of the sequence of events that led to his father’s death has helped the Lucknow police work out the gruesome murder of a theatre artist.
“Uncle papa ko maar rahe the aur mummy ne papa ko pakad kar rakha tha,” the seven-year-old told the police.
Taking it as a clue, the police took the cellphone of his mother Pinky on surveillance and soon things began to fall in place.
It may be recalled that Jagdish Verma, a theatre artist, was found dead in his house in Ghazipur police circle on the morning of August 5. A blood stained cricket bat was found lying nearby.
His wife Pinky had told the cops that two persons had come to meet her husband late in the night. She said that since the men kept sitting till late in the night, she and her son went to sleep and she woke up later in the night, she found her husband lying in a pool of blood.
The body was sent for post-mortem examination which confirmed that Jagdish had died due to severe and multiple head injuries. A case was lodged with Ghazipur police station in connection with the incident on the complaint of Pinky. She said she had heard her husband address one of the men as “dhol master”.
Police investigations led to a dead end and the cops failed to locate the person who went by the name of “dhol master”.
However, during one of their visits to the victim’s house, a cop got talking to the seven-year-old and during the conversation, the boy spilled the beans.
The surveillance of Pinky’s cellphone revealed that before her marriage to Jagdish some eight years ago, she was in love with one Vinod who lives in Pilibhit and works in sweet meat shop.
Last year, when Pinki went to Pilibhit where she met Vinod and the two revived their relationship. Pinky was in constant touch with him through the phone thereafter.
On the day of the murder, Vinod had come to meet Pinky in Lucknow when he was confronted by Jagdish which eventually led to the murder.
The police arrested Pinky and Vinod on Friday night and sent them to jail on Saturday.
The boy has been handed over to their relatives.