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MEERUT: In a crime which has left even police shocked, a woman allegedly hired a contract killer to get rid of her 28-year-old son, who had been objecting to her illicit relationship with another man. Police said that Usha Parashar, her lover Naushad and the contract killer, Bilal, have been arrested for the murder of Mukesh Parashar .

After the family filed a missing complaint at TP Nagar police station on May 20, Mukesh’s body was found near a tube well in Narhaida village in Brahmapuri area on May 21. Following post-mortem, it was revealed that Mukesh had been strangled, which established that he had been murdered, in an otherwise blind case.

Local police, after being unable to find a motive for the murder, could only connect the dots after crime branch's surveillance cell was roped in. “Mukesh used to pick fights with his mother Usha over the latter's affair with Naushad. Usha then decided to get rid of her son and asked Naushad to make a plan,” SSP Rajesh Pandey said.

The woman, in her late 40s, initially tried to mislead the team by claiming that her son was a chronic alcoholic and used to fight with people while in an inebriated state and most possibly accidentally died of drowning in the tube well. According to police, Usha had two months ago made a failed attempt to kill Mukesh by mixing insecticide in his drink.

Police, on suspicion, detained Naushad based on Usha’s call detail record. Upon interrogation, Naushad confessed to have killed Mukesh with the help of hired help Bilal, a history-sheeter with close to a dozen cases of robbery and snatching. Both Naushad and Bilal are resident of Lisari Gate area here in Meerut .

"Naushad and Bilal made Mukesh drunk on May 20. They later took him to a discreet location and strangled him using a rope. His body was abandoned near a tube well,” SSP Pandey said. Police has recovered the rope used in the murder.