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Updated: Dec 24, 2018 23:53 IST

A leading Gorakhpur doctor, arrested for allegedly murdering his ex-wife in Nepal, kept her social media and WhatsApp accounts active to mislead police and well as her family for over six months.

Dr DP Singh was arrested with two of his accomplices on Friday. The body of Rajeshwari Srivastava alias Rakhi Srivastava, 30, was recovered by the Nepal police on June 8, but could not be identified as Singh had taken away her IDs and mobile before leaving Nepal on June 6. It was only through the photograph of the dead body that the Uttar Pradesh police managed to identify Rakhi.

Even after her death, Singh kept her alive in the virtual world by continuously updating her Facebook account, keeping her mobile active at multiple locations to mislead the police as well as relatives who lodged a missing and abduction complaint against Rakhi’s second husband Maneesh, at Shahpur police station on June 24.

Inspector general of police, Special Task Force, Amitabh Yash, Singh pushed Rakhi off a hill top in Nepal’s Pokhra on June 6 after getting her drunk as the autopsy conducted there revealed traces of alcohol in her blood. He kept operating her Facebook account for six months to confuse the police and the investigating agency STF, Yash said at a press conference.

The doctor took her mobile around from Nepal to Guwahati, but calls went unanswered, deepening the mystery behind her disappearance till the police got a clue following her exit from a WhatsApp group and intensified the search.

Two of his accomplices involved in the murder – Pramod Kumar Singh and Desh Deepak, the doctor’s driver were also arrested on Friday.

At the press conference, Yash said that Rakhi had gone missing from Gorakhpur and her brother Amar Prakash Srivastav lodged a report with Shahpur police on June 24 against her second husband Manish Sinha, a resident of Gaya, Bihar.

However, police found Rakhi had gone to Nepal’s Bhairawa from Kathmandu on June 3 with Sinha, who returned to Bihar on June 5. Thereafter, she met Singh, who took her to Pokhra to murder her.

According to Yash, Singh, who was already married, had befriended Rakhi in 2011 during the treatment of her father at Aryan Hospital and later married her. When she got to know about his first marriage, she began to press him for a share in the property which led to frequent arguments between the couple.

Singh, who was upset with the disputes, planned to killed Rakhi, who however left and married Sinha in February 2018, and went to Nepal with him, the IG said.

While Sinha returned to India, she stayed back. Later, when Sinha tried calling his wife, she did not answer her phone but her WhatsApp account remained active. Her account only became non-operational on October 4 at around 11.30 pm, he said.