GREATER NOIDA: An investigation into a murder attempt on four family members with an overdose of Ativan, an anti-anxiety medicine, in Dankaur has revealed that the plot had been hatched over six months. However, one of the five accused had an apparent change of heart at the last moment and reduced the number of pills that they planned to mix with the food of the victims.
Police have arrested Rajkumari (45), her two daughters, Jyoti (21) and Archana (20), and their boyfriends, Abhishek (23) and Deepak Singh (22), for an alleged plot to kill Rajkumari’s husband Devendra (50), mother-in-law Reena Devi (75) and her brother-in-law’s sons (13 and 14). The family of seven lived in Junaidpur village in Dankaur.
Police said the daughters hatched the plan with their boyfriends and later involved their mother. After waiting for the opportune moment, they finally decided to go ahead with the plan on May 15.
“Archana had been dating Deepak forone year, while Jyoti got into a relationship with Abhishek around 7-8 months ago. The two sisters had expressed their desire to marry their boyfriends, but their father and grandmother opposed it. Devendra had testy ties with his wife. He always opposed and quarrelled with his wife and daughters about their marriage,” said Radha Raman Singh, the in-charge of Dankaur police station.
Frustrated, the sisters and their boyfriends hatched a plan to kill the father, grandmother, their minor cousins and elope. “They knew their mother was unhappy with their father and decided to involve her as well. Rajkumari had run away from the house a year and a half ago but came back after the families intervened. She was in a relationship with a man, Ravinder Kumar, from the same area. However, the two ended the relationship after her husband found out about them around five to six months ago,” Singh said.
The five accused, the police said, would often discuss the murder plot over the phone. Around a week ago, Deepak allegedly bought 20 tablets of Ativan from Sikandrabad and handed them over to Archana. “They also rented a room in Sector 58 of Noida where they planned to stay after the murders. On the day of the incident, Rajkumari called up Ravinder several times, but he instead complained to her husband. Before dinner, the pills were mixed with a dish of ridge gourd by Rajkumari and her daughters,” the station in-charge said.
Although the motive was to kill the family members, Archana changed her mind, mainly because of the minors, and reduced the number of pills, the police said.
Those who ate the dish — Devendra, his mother and the two minors — lost consciousness around 10pm on May 15 and were later hospitalised. Deepak and Abhishek picked up Rajkumari and her daughters in a car and reached the rented room at midnight.
Devendra initially filed a case against Rajkumari and Ravinder, alleging they had created a scene earlier that morning. “However, during investigation, the police found Ravindra had no role in the overdosing. The five accused were nabbed from near the Kanarsi bridge in Dankaur. They were trying to flee to Sikandrabad,” Singh said.
The five were booked under IPC sections 120B (party to criminal conspiracy), 328 (causing hurt with poison) and 307 (attempt to murder). “They will be in judicial custody for 14 days,” Singh said.
