New Delhi: The double life of Nandlal Verma, a seemingly humble spare auto parts businessman living with his family in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, came crashing down after police discovered that he was actually Rakesh Patel, a murder convict absconding for 24 years.
Patel, originally from northwest Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, had stabbed a neighbour to death along with two of his associates, Chander Prakash and Anil Kumar, over a trivial matter in 1990. He was arrested, and sentenced to life imprisonment five years later.
He had gained the trust of authorities when he was first granted parole for his wedding in 1999. Three years later, when he was granted parole in 2002 for the birth of his second child, he didn’t surrender, and fled.
After Patel was identified as one of the parole jumpers, a police team carried out an extensive analysis of his jail records, parole history, criminal antecedents, mobile phone details, known addresses and information related to his relatives, associates and suspected hideouts.
“Technical as well as manual surveillance was mounted to ascertain his current whereabouts,” said DCP (crime) Pankaj Kumar. “Raids were conducted repeatedly at the known addresses and suspected hideouts in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh,” he added. A team was sent to Prayagraj after a tip-off was received that Patel had been living there along with his family and had changed his name to Nandlal Verma. He tried to conceal his identity before the team and claimed that he had no connection with the murder case, said police.
Although he was allegedly unable to produce any valid documents establishing his identity, his son had shown certain documents that made investigators more suspicious and prompted them to conduct a more intense verification. Confronted with ample evidence, Patel finally confessed, claimed police.
He told the cops that after jumping parole, he had moved between different locations to evade arrest and eventually settled in Prayagraj, where he started an auto spare parts business to sustain himself and his family while remaining under the radar for years. He shifted to the current place in Prayagraj in 2022.
