BHUBANESWAR: After five years of wild goose chase, the CBI on Tuesday arrested fugitive Lucknow-based jeweller Amit Agarwal, who was on the run after allegedly killing his wife and two kids in a seaside hotel at Puri in 2013.
Officials of CBI’s Kolkata wing traced Agarwal in Indore two days ago and brought him to Bhubaneswar on Monday night. “We have formally arrested him and produced him in court at Bhubaneswar. We will take him on custodial remand for interrogation,” said a CBI officer.
Bodies of Ankita Bansal, 28, her eight-year-old daughter Vaani and six-year-old daughter Divyansh were found from the hotel room on December 15, 2013. Ankita’s husband Amit, a bullion trader in Lucknow, was the main accused as he had been on the run since the crime, CBI sources said. Though the Puri police initially probed the case, the CBI took up the case in October 2014 following a directive by the Orissa high court.
Narrating the murder motive, CBI said Agarwal was financially bankrupt and had planned to commit suicide after eliminating his family members. But, he was scared of death after killing his wife and children and fled from the hotel. Agarwal was working under a contractor in Indore with a different identity. CBI got clue about his hideout after tracking the phone numbers of his family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.
“We came to know that he had incurred loss of around Rs 70 lakh in business. He had also borrowed huge money from market. Failing to overcome the stress and humiliation, he had decided to kill self and his family members. But after killing his family members, he became scared and dropped the plan of ending his own life,” the officer said.
Amit and his family had left their Lucknow house on August 17, 2013. They checked into the hotel in Puri on December 9, 2013. The UP police had on August 20, 2013 found his car abandoned near Allahabad and found a suicide note in which he allegedly stated that he was going to commit suicide with his family members.
Prasanta Patnaik