The alleged killer of businessman Shanti Lal Baid, whose body was found in a south-central Kolkata guesthouse on February 14, was arrested near Ahmedabad in Gujarat on Wednesday morning.
Vimal Sharma, the accused, had allegedly given police the slip several times before being intercepted by a joint team of the Kolkata and Gujarat police on Wednesday.
Kolkata police commissioner Vineet Goyal said Sharma had frequently forged identity while on the run. “He is extremely clever and has not left any footprints. That caused the delay in his arrest,” Goyal said.
He said the accused had frequently changed his locations, travelling across Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Sharma, who the police said is from Delhi and worked in a share trading company, has a cheating case against him. He had “befriended” Baid and met him a few days before the murder, officers familiar with the case details said.
Baid, 66, was found murdered inside a guesthouse in Shambhunath Pandit Street, near his Lee Road house, hours after his kidnapper and killer had extorted Rs 25 lakh as ransom from his family and fled the city by train.
Initially, after escaping from Bengal, Sharma was not using any mobile phone, which made it difficult for the police to track him down.
By the time the police located the taxi in which Sharma had gone to Howrah station after collecting the ransom, he had boarded a Puri-bound train.
The police said they had missed Sharma in a hotel named Kumud Plaza at Ashokenagar in Bhubaneswar, where he had checked in as Shivam.
The Lalbazar cops then tracked him down to a mobile phone showroom in Bhubaneswar. “He bought a smartphone paying Rs 40,000 in cash. He identified himself as Kabeer Sharma in the shop,” said an investigator. “He managed to flee again before the police arrived.”
Sharma allegedly fled to Maharashtra and Delhi before being caught in Gujarat. He was produced in a court in Gujarat and will be brought to Kolkata on transit remand.
A senior officer said the motive for the murder could be known after Sharma is questioned.
