Gujarat: Man accused of killing four persons nabbed after 16 years

A 47-year-old man, accused of killing four persons and looting cash from an `ashram' in Gujarat's Mehsana district in 2004, has been arrested by the state Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), officials said.

Govind Yadav was nabbed from his house in Delhi and brought to the state on Thursday, said an ATS release.

Yadav, a native of Simthara in Madhya Pradesh, allegedly eloped with a woman from his village in 2003 and landed in Gujarat where he survived by doing odd jobs.

He married the woman and the couple took shelter at Motiba ashram (hermitage) attached to the Mahakali temple near Untva in Kadi tehsil of Mehsana district in February 2004.

The temple and the ashram were managed by its trustee Chimanbhai Patel (70) who had returned from the US. Its other residents were Sadhvi Samtanand Saraswati (35), caretaker Karman Ravalia (30) and Mohan Luhar (45), a mason-cum-helper.

Yadav, who was living under the alias `Mahendra Singh', allegedly hacked all the four to death on the night of March 2, 2004, using a sharp weapon, and then he and his wife fled with Rs 10 lakh in cash which they found in the ashram.

The Gujarat police had announced a reward of Rs 51,000 for information about him, but Yadav succeeded in evading arrest all these years.

He told ATS officials that after fleeing, he spent some time in Jaipur, Jhansi and a few smaller towns before settling down in Delhi.

He will be handed over to Mehsana Police for further investigation, the ATS release said.