Bhopal/ Guna: A juvenile murder accused arrested in 1997 managed to evade his arrest by police for as many as 24 years after he jumped bail. Police apparently too forgot about his existence despite the fact he returned home more than a year back in Guna. The police arrested him on Friday when he is now 37-year-old married man with two children.
According to station house officer, Madhusudangarh police station in Guna Jaiveer Singh Baghel, the accused Jagdish Yadav left his native place in 1997 after being released on bail from a juvenile home. He returned to his village in 2020, as he was under impression that police might have forgotten the incident, says Guna police.
The SHO said the accused Jagdish Yadav had murdered a man in 1997 with help of his accomplices in his village Naseerpur in Guna district at the age of 13.
After being released from juvenile home on bail. He later lived with his elder sister in Rajgarh district for more than 20 years as he revealed during the interrogation. He spent a few years some other places too.
He stayed there until 2020, and returned to his village a year ago. He was under impression that no one remembers the case now. He had married a woman in Rajgarh and has two children. Now, even his appearance has changed and his villagers hardly could identify him.
On the other hand, the family members of deceased had filed a writ petition with the Gwalior bench of the Jabalpur high court in 2018. The court took up hearing in the case and ordered police to produce the accused.
The Madhusudangarh police went to his village in 2018 but he was not there.
Police began searching him but they were clueless as the accused had severed all contacts from his relatives in Guna district.
However, when the court mounted pressure on police to summon the accused, they went to his sister’s village in Rajgarh recently to she told them that he has returned to his village.
The police then reached his village and had to struggle to identify him as his appearance had changed. The cops arrested him on Friday.
The SHO said the accused went missing when the case as under trial and the challan could not be produced in the case.
