Former Haryana legislator Relu Ram Punia's son-in-law Sanjeev Kumar, who was serving life sentence in prison for killing the politician and seven others but jumped parole two years ago, was arrested on Monday, police said. Sanjeev, who was out on parole in May 2018, never returned and had been absconding ever since, police said. They said Sanjeev was arrested by a team of Haryana police Special Task Force from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.
In June 2018, police here had filed a case on the complaint of Kurukshetra Jail Deputy Superintendent. Inspector Nirmal Singh said here on Monday that the STF team carried out a raid after inputs that he was hiding in Meerut.
Earlier, police here had said that Sanjeev was on a two-week parole from Kurukshetra jail and was to report back on May 31, 2018. The convict had given his address as Changnouli village in Bilaspur area of Yamunanagar, police had earlier said.
However, Sanjeev neither reached the mentioned address nor returned to Kurukshetra jail after which a case was registered against him. Relu Ram Punia's daughter, Sonia, and her husband, Sanjeev Kumar, were sentenced to death for killing the former MLA and seven other members of his family in 2001 at their farmhouse at Litani village in Hisar while they were asleep.
Their death sentence was later commuted to life. The case had sent shock-waves throughout the country. Punia had been elected to the state Assembly in 1996 from Barwala constituency in Hisar district.