Woman who faked her death planned more murders: Cops

Suspect Payal Bhati has told police that she made her plans by watching crime shows on television

NOIDA: A day after a woman from Greater Noida was apprehended for allegedly faking her death by killing another woman and dressing the corpse in her own clothes, the Gautam Budh Nagar police on Friday revealed more details and said the woman wanted everyone to believe she was dead so that she could allegedly kill four people whom she blamed for her parents’ suicide.

Speaking to media persons on Friday, police elaborated on the whole sequence of the events that ended in the arrest of Payal Bhati, 22, and her male friend Ajay Kumar 28 on Friday.

Police said it all started with a woman, Hema Chaudhary, 28, going missing on November 12. She lived in Surajpur with her nine-year-old son, sister and mother, and worked at one of the shops in Gaur City Mall in Greater Noida West. Her relatives, after looking for her in vain for a couple of days,filed a missing person complaint on November 15.

While probing that case, investigators traced her mobile phone’s last location and the last calls she made. This led the police to Ajay Kumar, 28, who was among the last few people she had spoken to.

Kumar worked at one of the two-wheeler manufacturing companies in Greater Noida. “We tried to find him but got to know that he was also not heard of since November 12, the same day Chaudhary went missing.

Our informants told us that he was going to be in Ghaziabad. We set up a check post near Char Murti roundabout and apprehended him and Bhati, who were on a motorcycle, on December 1 around 6pm,” said Saad Miya Khan, additional deputy commissioner of police (Noida Central).

Upon interrogating the duo, police got the first leads of an orchestrated murder and plans to kill at least four more persons, the ADCP said.

Police said Kumar and Bhati got connected on Facebook about two years ago and the two got close. During that time, Bhati’s older brother Arun’s wedding got fixed with a woman named Swati and for the wedding expenses, the family borrowed ₹5 lakh from a relative, Sunil. They were unable to repay him.

The wedding soon led to family tensions as the family thought Swati to be a “bad match”, police said.

The financial and familial tensions led Bhati’s parents to die by suicide in May 2022, police said.

Arun had registered an abetment to suicide case against his wife Swati, her two brothers and his cousin Sunil at the Dadri police station.

Bhati also blamed these four people for her parents’ death and wanted to kill them, claimed police.

“Around four months ago, she started planning the murders. She told us that she was motivated by crime shows on TV and started searching for a woman who was about her height, complexion and build, so that she could kill that woman and pose the corpse as her own -- nobody would suspect her of the other murders that she had planned to commit. She then enlisted Kumar’s help,” Khan said.

Kumar started looking for a woman who matched Bhati’s height, build and complexion. Through a common friend, he found Chaudhary and asked his friend to set up a meeting, offering her a small job for ₹5,000.

“When Chaudhary came to meet Kumar, the two of them abducted and sedated her. They took her to Bhati’s house in Dadri. Bhati mixed sedatives in her family’s dinner so that nobody would know what happened inside the house. Once, everyone was deep asleep, Kumar came over,” said Anil Rajput, SHO of Bisrakh police station.

“The duo took Chaudhary to the terrace and killed her by slitting her throat. They then slit both her wrists to make it look like a suicide. They then disfigured her face by pouring hot oil to make identification difficult. They dressed the corpse in Bhati’s clothes and also left a suicide note in Bhati’s handwriting,” said Khan.

The family thought that the body was Bhati’s and cremated it the following day. After the alleged murder, the couple fled to Bisa Colony in Bulandshahr. They later got married on November 27 in Ghaziabad, police said.

“Bhati, meanwhile,procured a gun and bullets to kill the four people she blamed for her parents’ death. The couple tailed Sunil at least three times to kill him, but were unsuccessful,” said Khan.

Police said that the couple had gone to Ghaziabad to collect their marriage certificate when they were apprehended by the police.

Police have booked Bhati and Kumar under sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence and giving false information), 120b (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Arms Act.

Police have recovered the murder weapon, a large knife that looks like a gun, the motorcycle on which the couple fled and a countrymade pistol with eight live bullets.

Police have also got hold of their marriage photos, Kumar’s phone, the purported suicide note as well as the pen and register that Bhati used to practice the note on.

Additionally, the police also recovered several of Chaudhary’s belongings kept in a bag, which include two of her mobile phones, a smart watch with charger, some fresh clothes and some hair clips.