india

Updated: Nov 24, 2018 07:33 IST

A truck driver, allegedly in an inebriated condition, ran over his wife and two stepdaughters following a domestic quarrel in south-west Delhi’s Dwarka and got away with the crime for nearly two days as the police believed it to be a road accident.

While his 38-year-old wife was killed on the spot, his two stepdaughters escaped with non-fatal injuries. The older of the two girls revealed the killer’s identity after regaining consciousness, police said. The alleged killer, 32-year-old Akhilesh Pal, was arrested from Dwarka Mor late Thursday night, nearly 72 hours after the crime.

Pal, police said, originally hails from Begusarai in Bihar and drives a truck in Delhi. He claimed that he married 38-year-old woman Vibha, who had left her first husband, last year, said Anto Alphonse, deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka). The couple lived in Kakrola village in Dwarka with the woman’s two daughters — a 17-year-old girl and an 18-month-old toddler.

According to police, the couple got into a quarrel late Monday night over Pal’s alleged extramarital affair. “During the quarrel, Pal forcibly took away the toddler girl with him and went to sleep in his truck parked in Dwarka Sector 16, three kilometres away from his home,” said the DCP.

His wife and older daughter began a search and spotted the man and the child around 1.30 am on Tuesday. “They stealthily picked up the child and walked away from the truck. When Pal woke up moments later and found the little girl missing, he drove out in his truck,” the DCP said.

Upon spotting the trio walking on the road, an angry Pal allegedly ran his truck over them, killing the woman on the spot. The toddler escaped with minor injuries but the older girl, who sustained injuries on her head, fell unconscious. But Pal, police said, wasn’t going to get away with the crime easily.

“After witnessing the accident, a passerby gave chase to the truck. The chase ended with Pal driving the truck into a pile of sand in the dark. When his attempts to drive the truck out of the sand failed, Pal abandoned the vehicle and ran away even as the chaser dialled the police,” said the officer.

Investigators initially thought it was a road accident and registered a case of causing death by negligence at Dwarka (North) police station. The twist came when the 17-year-old girl regained consciousness the next evening and police carried forward their probe to rule out the possibility of foul play.

“The girl had not seen the offending truck, but when we showed her pictures of the vehicle, she immediately identified it. She then narrated the events preceding the crime,” said the officer. It was then that police found Pal was on the run. They booked him for murder and attempt to murder and launched a hunt. He was arrested Thursday night after police received a tip-off that he was leaving for Begusarai.