Noida: Caught stealing from purse, man strangled 70-year-old

NOIDA: Ten days after a 70-year-old woman was found murdered inside the washroom of her three-storey house in Sector 15, a man who did odd jobs as a painter in the area has been arrested. Police said the woman had called the man for some work and caught him trying to steal money from her purse. When she confronted him, he allegedly strangled her with a curtain and walked off with her TV set.
The accused has been identified as 34-year-old Rajesh, from Bihar’s Khagaria. Police said footage from a CCTV camera installed across the street showed him standing near the woman’s house with a handkerchief around his mouth. He was also spotted by neighbours while leaving with the TV set, they added.
The crime took place between 11am and 1pm on July 27, police said. “Rajesh said he was passing by the house around 11am when Santosh spotted him and asked him to come and see the patches on the walls. He had done paint work there 18 months ago. After she went into the kitchen, he saw her purse lying on the table and picked it up. However, Santosh saw it and rebuked him, saying she would call the police. Upon this, he got scared and covered her mouth with her hands,” DCP (Noida) Sankalp Sharma said.
Rajesh then took Santosh to the bathroom and strangled her with a curtain hanging in the house, he said. Her body, wrapped in a blanket, was found later in the evening by a neighbour.
Police said the accused stole the woman’s gold chain, her TV and its stabiliser, along with Rs 1,500 kept in her purse. The stabiliser, Rs 700 in cash and a piece of the gold chain have been recovered from a jhuggi in the Sector 16 JJ Colony where Rajesh had been staying. “He told us he had sold the TV to his friend Nandu for Rs 4,000,” they said.
Santosh used to stay alone on the first floor of her house while the other floors were occupied by four tenants. Her three sons reside in the US, the UK and Malaysia.
As the main gate and another gate to the balcony were found shut and the side door was found open, cops had ruled out forced entry.