A murder convict who spent two years dodging investigators was finally cornered in Delhi after Gwalior police officers disguised themselves as delivery agents and lured him out of hiding with a fake gift parcel. The fugitive, identified as Jagdish Arya, had been serving a life sentence for a killing that took place 35 years ago before he vanished rather than face prison.
Five days undercover and a parcel that never existed
Arya had settled quietly into Delhi's Jahangirpuri area, working as a tailor under the radar so no one would recognise him. Once Gwalior police received a solid lead on his whereabouts, a dedicated team was dispatched to the capital. For five straight days, officers moved through the neighbourhood in disguise, at times posing as scrap dealers and at other times simply walking the lanes like ordinary passers by, all to confirm his identity beyond doubt. Arya himself stayed extremely cautious and rarely stepped outside his home, which forced the team to improvise. Dressed as delivery staff, the officers finally showed up at his door and called out that a gift parcel had arrived in his name. The moment greed got the better of him and he stepped out to collect it, the waiting team closed in and took him into custody.
The 1991 killing in Birlanagar
The case dates back to 1991, when a man named Nandu, a resident of Gwalior's Birlanagar locality, was brutally murdered. Investigations at the time established that his own neighbour, Jagdish Arya, along with Arya's brother Teekaram and a few others, had jointly carried out the killing. Police registered a murder case at the local Gwalior station, and once the probe was complete, Arya and his co-accused were sent to jail.
Life term upheld all the way to the Supreme Court
Roughly a decade later, in 2001, a district court in Gwalior found Arya, Teekaram and the others guilty and sentenced all of them to life imprisonment. At some point during the proceedings the convicts secured bail, and Arya used that window to challenge his conviction, first before the High Court and then before the Supreme Court. Both courts, however, upheld the life sentence handed down by the trial court and dismissed his appeals. With no legal option left to escape punishment, Arya went underground, and police spent the next two years actively hunting for him. ASP Jairaj Kuber said the team has now brought the accused back from Delhi to Gwalior.
