Ahmedabad: A history-sheeter hired to kill a man, ended up murdering the woman who paid him, and has now been caught almost five years later in Ahmedabad.Ajaykumar Mishra, a history-sheeter wanted in connection with a 2021 murder in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, was apprehended by the City Crime Branch on Friday. He had been on the run for years, moving between Goa, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai to evade police.The case has its roots in a family property dispute. A woman named Shakuntala Devi and her younger son Amit were locked in a dispute over a property with Shakuntala’s other son, Ajay. “Looking for a way out, Shakuntala and Amit approached Mishra, a history-sheeter who worked as a security guard at the hospital where Amit was employed. Amit knew about Mishra’s criminal background. They offered him Rs 4 lakh to kill Ajay. Mishra took an advance of Rs 1 lakh and disappeared without carrying out the job,” said a DCB officer.Shakuntala and Amit, according to the police, tracked Mishra down to his village and confronted him, demanding that he either complete the job or return the money. Four months passed. Then Mishra and his associate Ketan Tiwari turned up at Shakuntala’s house in the Tikrapara locality of Raipur, claiming they had come to carry out the contract, said the DCB. When they arrived, they found that Amit was in jail on a separate offence. Shakuntala was alone.“Mishra and Tiwari stayed overnight. They strangled Shakuntala, then fled with Rs 10 lakh in cash and 30 to 35 tolas of gold,” said the officer.“The two sold the gold to a trader in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh. To evade detection, they stopped using mobile phones and avoided using govt identity documents such as PAN and Aadhaar cards. Mishra first hid in Goa, then moved to the Naroda area of Ahmedabad in 2022 to stay with his brother, and later shifted to Mumbai,” the officer added.The Ahmedabad Crime Branch tracked him down using technical intelligence and field surveillance. The team is now coordinating with Raipur police for the formal handover and further legal proceedings.
