New Delhi: Beghraj, a 45-year-old native of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, lived a life of deception for 12 long years. Convicted of kidnapping, ransom and the murder of an eight-year-old boy in 2004, he jumped parole in 2012 and vanished. His life of hiding came to an end when Delhi Police’s crime branch tracked him to Muzaffarnagar.
To conceal his identity after the murder, Beghraj changed his name to Anil Kumar and frequently changed his location. He worked as a labourer in various cities, among them Jalandhar, Punjab, and Parikshitgarh in Meerut. To conceal his whereabouts, he occasionally visited and stayed with his relatives.
The crime branch team scrutinised the fugitive’s past records and analysed his call detail records to identify individuals he was in contact with. The team also activated sources in Delhi and UP, ultimately tracking the man to Muzaffarnagar. Around a year ago, Beghraj had shifted base to Muzaffarnagar, where he found work as a daily-wage mason, earning around Rs 600 per day. He meticulously avoided his native village and instead lived with his second wife in a nearby village. To complete his disappearance at Beghraj, he adopted Anil Kumar as his name.
Sanjay Sain, DCP (Crime), said that Beghraj had admitted to hiding in the dozen years as a fugitive with his relatives. He remarried in 2020 and has a two-year-old son. During interrogation, he confessed to the murder, the motive, according to the cops, being his long-standing feud with neighbour Radhe Shyam and brother Dharamvir.
On Feb 3, 2004, Radhe Shyam reported his eight-year-old son missing. Two days later, the family received a chilling phone call demanding a ransom of Rs 2 lakhs for the boy’s safe return.
Suspecting the involvement of his own relatives, namely Dharamvir and his brother Beghraj, the cops, accompanied by Radhe Shyam, raided the house in Muzaffarnagar from where the ransom call had been made, leading to the arrest of Beghraj and his accomplice, Kiran. During interrogation, the duo claimed they had murdered the boy and disposed of his body in a sugarcane field. Police recovered the body and the murder weapon, a knife.
Beghraj and Kiran were subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, while Dharamvir was acquitted. Beghraj was granted parole on Jan 21, 2012, on condition he would surrender to jail authorities by Feb 19. He simply vanished and evaded the cops for a dozen years.
