Retired IAF pilot, wife murdered for gain by servant: Police

The gruesome murder of a retired IAF pilot and his wife was the handiwork of their pet caretaker-cum-gardener and his cousin, police announced on Wednesday. The employee has been arrested.

It was a cold-blooded double murder driven by pure greed, police said.

Raghurajan, 70, and his wife Asha Rajan, 63, both from Chennai, were found murdered in their duplex villa at Eagleton The Golf Village, a gated community in Bidadi, about 35 southwest of Bengaluru, on Tuesday afternoon. The bodies were discovered by a security guard who had rushed to the villa after the couple’s son asked him to check on his parents. The son, who lives in Delhi, got worried because the couple wasn’t answering his phone calls.

Incidentally, the guard had seen a pet caretaker hired by the couple at the house a while ago. The person told him the couple had gone to Bengaluru. The guard left and informed the couple’s son.

Also read: Retd IAF pilot, wife found murdered in B'luru villa; servant missing

But the son wouldn’t believe that his parents had left the pet caretaker alone at the house. So he asked the guard to go back to the villa and find out. When the guard came back, the caretaker ran off. There was another man with him. He, too, ran away.

Police say the pet caretaker was indeed the killer and have identified him as 23-year-old Joginder Kumar Yadav. He had an accomplice — a cousin who’s still on the run. Police are making efforts to find him.

A team led by Ramanagar Superintendent of Police K Santosh Babu arrested Yadav from near the under-construction Bidadi bypass of the Bengaluru-Mysuru national highway in the early hours of Wednesday.

Yadav, a Bihar native who lives in Bidadi with his wife and a child, had been hired by the deceased couple only a few months ago.

Police say Yadav had remained a faithful employee until about a month ago when he surreptitiously learnt the password for Raghurajan’s digital wallet.

The retired IAF pilot had left the phone unattended and unlocked. Yadav grabbed it and transferred Rs 70,000 to a friend in Bihar.

While the couple thought cybercriminals had cheated them and changed the password, Yadav became greedy and decided to steal more. He took a cousin’s help and they eventually decided to kill the couple.

The duo chose Monday to go for the kill. Around 7 pm, Yadav told the couple he would be going home. After he walked out, the coupe locked the main door but Yadav and his cousin were actually hiding close-by. They quickly climbed the stairs and went to the first floor whose door Yadav had already left open. The duo stayed put in a room until 2 am, without the couple’s knowledge. Yadav knew that Raghurajan slept in a bedroom on the first floor. When the retired pilot came to the bedroom, the duo pounced on him and hammered him to death.

Whisky, another murder

It was the duo’s first murder.

The sight and smell of human blood put them off so much that both threw up. They later cleansed themselves, took a bottle of whisky from the cupboard, went to the terrace and drank. Around 5 am, they walked downstairs to where Asha was sleeping. They pounced on her and killed her in a similar fashion.

The duo then launched a frantic search for cash and other valuables. They found Rs 56,000 in cash and some gold jewellery.

They packed them in a bag, took Raghurajan’s phone and tried to transfer money.

But the password change foiled their efforts. They then went to Yadav’s house in Bidadi around 6 am but returned two hours later.

They spent the next six hours trying to transfer more money from Raghurajan’s digital wallets but didn’t succeed. The guard came looking for the couple around 2 pm, forcing the duo to flee.

Yadav told the police he took to crime to repay hand loans that he had taken for his marriage and child’s treatment.

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