When Gurgaon Police entered the house behind a tall, white, boundary wall with barbed wire atop it on May 18, they found the body of a young man in the bedroom. His hands and legs were splattered with mud and there were injuries on his head and neck. There were no signs of a struggle.
At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. The house had a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. A fridge and a cooler facing the double-bed cot filled most of the bedroom. It was something else, however, that caught the attention of the policemen: a single-handle, black, iron, roti tawa (griddle) lying in a corner with several bloodstains.
This may be the murder weapon, the policemen suspected.
During the day, an unknown woman had called the police emergency response team and told them a man was lying dead at this house in Tikri village before hanging up. At the spot, the police team did not find any ID card or phone to help them ascertain the man’s identity.
However, they saw a big board tied to the roof of the house — “Stray Love Animals Pet Boarding. Please Help Voiceless Animals,” it said, with a pink paw printed on it. The house doubled up as a dog daycare, they learned.
On it was a phone number. “But the number wasn’t working,” said a senior police officer. “We traced the SIM card to a village in Panipat and contacted the local sarpanch. He said the man was 28-year-old Vicky and informed his family. They (the family) turned to his live-in partner for answers. We got to know from them that Vicky lived with a woman, Neetu,” the officer added.
A day later, police arrested Neetu, 34, from Ghata village in connection with the murder. She had allegedly fled with Vicky’s phone and IDs, police said.
Police said Neetu was separated from her husband; they have two children – an 8-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl. When she wasn’t with Vicky, she would live in her house in Behrampur. Her children would stay with her there or with her mother in Ghata.
It was in 2018, police said, that Neetu met Vicky — he was working with a drug supplier at a hospital in the city when Neetu sought his help to nurse a dog back to health. The two fell in love, police said, and she moved in with him. The couple moved to the rented house in Tikri village only a few months ago.
A single-storey structure with three aluminum doors, the house had a small front yard and six bamboo poles holding up a tarpaulin to form a small shed. The area is sparsely populated with “unauthorized” structures. Only a few here knew the couple.
A man, who works as a driver and lives around 200 meters from Vicky’s house, said the couple were never seen outside. “We came to know of the murder only when the police arrived,” he added.
During questioning, police claimed Neetu told them she and Vicky regularly fought over his relationships with two other women. On May 17, they were sitting in the yard and drinking, police said, and they got into a fight.
“Vicky beat her up. Neetu left the house but returned soon with her brother. Another argument ensued which got heated,” the police officer claimed. “Neetu told us it soon turned into a fistfight. Her brother was enraged. In a moment of rage, Neetu brought the tawa and started hitting Vicky,” the officer claimed.
“They pulled the body inside later,” police claimed. Neetu and her brother, police said, fled to their house in Ghata. Her brother is still on the run, they added.
Vicky’s brother Sonu, a factory worker in Panipat, got a call from the village sarpanch the next day. He said Vicky met with an accident. My mother called Neetu but she lied to us. She said she was not in Gurgaon and Vicky had gone missing three days ago. When police contacted us, we told them Neetu lives with Vicky,” he said.
Vicky’s family didn’t suspect Neetu at first. At the police station, Sonu saw photos of his brother’s body. “His face was bloody and there were many injuries on his head. Even then, we didn’t suspect Neetu. They were in love…,” Sonu said.
Vicky had dropped out of school after Class X and wanted to work instead. A few years later, his father died. So he left his village, moved to Gurgaon, and took up a job with the drug company.
“It was five years ago that he told me he was living with a woman,” recalled Sonu.
Subsequently, Vicky brought Neetu home to the village. “We were surprised to see her. Everybody asked them to get married but they didn’t show any interest… She (Neetu) always behaved well with us,” Sonu said.
Vicky’s mother is yet to grasp that he was killed. “She would call him every day, inquire about his health, and ask what he ate. Vicky was very close to her,” Sonu said.