Hitman hired to kill son murders woman, loots Rs 10 lakh; caught after 5 years

A murder-for-hire plot took a shocking turn when the hired killer turned on his own employer. What began as a family feud over property ended in a cold-blooded killing — and a five-year chase.

In Short

• Woman, son hired contract killer to murder elder son
• Hitman took advanced payment, fled to his village
• Contract killed later murdered woman, looted cash, gold

A contract killer hired to murder a woman’s own son ended up killing the woman herself, and then disappeared with cash and gold for five years before finally being caught.

The accused, Ajay Mishra, was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch from the Naroda area, solving a 2021 murder and robbery case in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

The case dates back to a bitter property dispute within a family. Shakuntala Yadav, along with her younger son Amit Yadav, had allegedly hired Mishra, a hospital security guard known to them, to eliminate her elder son. A deal of Rs 4 lakh was struck, with Rs 1 lakh paid in advance.

However, Mishra never carried out the killing. Instead, he fled to his native village. When Shakuntala and Amit tracked him down and demanded their money back, he assured them he would return it.

Months later, Mishra returned — but not to repay the money.

According to police, Mishra, along with his associate Ketan Tiwari, went to Shakuntala’s house in Raipur, where she was alone. Sensing an opportunity, the duo abandoned the original murder plan and decided to target her instead.

They allegedly strangled the elderly woman to death using a rope and fled with around Rs 10 lakh in cash and around 350-450 grams of gold jewellery. The stolen gold was later sold off.

To evade arrest, Mishra went off the grid, abandoning his mobile phone and avoiding use of identification documents like PAN and Aadhaar. He kept moving across locations before eventually settling in Ahmedabad’s Naroda area in 2022, where he stayed under the radar.

After years of investigation and fresh inputs, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch tracked him down and arrested him, bringing an end to his five-year run from the law. Police said further legal action is underway, and efforts are on to trace other accused involved in the case.

- Ends