NOIDA: A 70-year-old man and his wife (65) were found murdered in their Greater Noida house on Friday morning. The injuries showed both were attacked brutally – Narendra Nath was tied up, gagged, battered with a blunt object, and then strangled while Suman was beaten and then shot in the chest.
Narendra, who had a spare parts business in Delhi and had been leading a retired life in the Alpha II house, was a cousin of Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath. Suman was a yoga practitioner with a Delhi-based group, said police and family sources.
Narendra’s body lay crumpled under a pile of clothes inside a cramped storage room in the basement when the police reached the scene. His face was clotted and bruised. Suman’s body was found on the first floor, on the drawing room floor.
The house has three levels – a basement, and the ground and first floors.
Suman’s jewellery and Rs 25,000 in cash was stolen and the ransacked cupboards indicated the assailants had combed the house for valuables. Four glasses of wine and noodles and momos on plates in the basement indicated there were guests in the house on Thursday evening. The murders happened after 10.55pm on Thursday, when Suman last spoke on the phone.
The guests who had come to see Narendra on Thursday evening – at least 3, based on the number of glasses – and were chatting with him in the basement are the prime suspects for the police, who have recovered footage from at least six CCTV cameras installed in two houses in the vicinity. “We have gathered some strong clues from CCTV footage and some of the accused have been identified,” a senior police officer told TOI.
According to the family, the last conversation Suman had was with her daughter and son-in-law on the phone around 10.55pm when she allegedly complained to them about the people her husband was entertaining in the basement. Narendra was friendly and liked a conversation. Sources said he would also lend money to local vendors or acquaintances in the locality. The basement was a place where he often met people who worked in the neighbourhood, like vendors, electricians and masons, for a chat, police said. Suman allegedly did not like this.
Late on Thursday, when she spoke to her daughter, she had expressed her displeasure. “She said she was angered by it but could not go downstairs and complain. We advised her to ignore them and go to sleep,” her son-in-law Jatin Thankappan told TOI. “After that, I called her around 5.15am since she had some medical tests slated for Friday, but she did not take the call. We got worried. When I went to the house, the side door was open and my mother-in-law’s body was on the floor of the drawing room, under a quilt. Blood had oozed from her body and she had injuries on the head and chest,” he added.
Doors of all the closets were open and clothes were strewn all around. Jatin said he called police and went around the house looking for Narendra. It was only after police arrived and began a thorough search of the house that Narendra’s body was discovered in the basement storage. “His hands and legs were tied and his mouth had tape on it. His face was blackened. There was a head injury too,” Jatin said.
Other than the food and wine glasses, police found a liquor bottle and pieces of cigarette and bidi. Police said it seemed prima facie that Narendra was killed first. The assailants then went to the ground and first floors. They broke open an inner door on the first floor that Suman had latched before going to bed, her brother Vijay Singh said. “The door had been broken by the accused. Its latch had come off. It seems my sister struggled, but was dragged by the attackers, who shot her dead,” he said.
Suman had a head injury, possibly from a pistol butt. The gunshot wound was on the left side of her chest. Narendra and Suman’s son Rohit, who is married and lives in a housing society in Greater Noida, had also shared information with police about four-people persons from the nearby market who would frequently visit the house or to whom Narendra had lent money.
“Narendra Nath would allow them into the house but always in the basement. He would often lend them money. He also gave them cash to buy liquor, which they consumed together in the basement. It seems it was someone who he knew that orchestrated the crime,” additional DCP (Greater Noida) Vishal Pandey said.