NEW DELHI — A 37-year-old man, who allegedly killed his nephew suspecting him of having an affair with his girlfriend, was arrested by the Delhi Police from Hyderabad after three years of the incident, officials said Thursday.

Bijay Kumar Maharana, a resident of Odisha’s Ganjam, moved to Delhi in 2012 after his girlfriend shifted to the national capital. In 2015, Bijay’s nephew Jai Prakash also moved to Delhi from Hyderabad and they started living together at a flat in Delhi’s Dwarka area, officials said.

While Bijay used to work in an IT firm in Noida Sector 144, Jai Prakash was an employee of a Gurgaon-based company.

Over time, Jai Prakash became close to Bijay’s girlfriend, which he didn’t like. Upset over this, Bijay planned to kill his nephew, Rajender Singh Sagar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka), said.

On the night of 6 February, 2016, when Jai Prakash was asleep, he smashed his head with the motor of a ceiling fan, which was lying in his flat for repair, the officer said.

He dragged the body to his balcony and buried it in soil, which he had already arranged. He even planted saplings to alleviate any suspicion, the officer said.

After a week, he filed a missing complaint with police saying his nephew didn’t return after he went out with some friends. He stayed in the flat for about two months and then shifted to Nangloi in western fringes of the city. In 2017, he moved to Hyderabad, the officer said.

In October last year, Jai Prakash’s skeleton was found when the building was being renovated. The skeleton was wrapped in a blue-colour jacket, a shirt, a bed sheet, a blanket and a mattress.

From the owner of the flat, police found about Bijay. The owner, Vikram Singh, also told police that two other tenants also lived in the flat after Bijay vacated it.

During investigation, Bijay was found missing and no one in his family or his group of friends knew about his whereabouts. He had changed his mobile number and stopped using his bank accounts after withdrawing all his money, the officer said.

With the help of technical surveillance, police located him after weeks of hunt. A team of the Delhi Police first went to Vishakhapatnam on December 26 and later travelled to Hyderabad on 1 January in search of Bijay.

Bijay was nabbed on Sunday from Hyderabad and was brought to Delhi, he said.