Ghaziabad man kills flatmate over habit of cooking food at home

Nearly a fortnight after a 32-year-old man was found dead at his rented accommodation in Khoda, his 45-year-old flatmate was arrested on Saturday for allegedly killing him over his habit of cooking food at home, said Ghaziabad police.

The victim was identified as Netram Sharma, and the suspect as Sudhir Sharma, both originally from Farukkhabad. They had started sharing a small rented house in Madhu Vihar, Khoda for the past 10 days before the murder, they added.

The incident came to light after the neighbours sensed foul smell emanating from the locked house on March 21 late night and alerted the police. Police found a decomposed body that was later identified.

Abhishek Srivastava, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Indirapuram circle, said the autopsy could not initially ascertain cause of the death and the viscera was preserved.

“Locals shared the two stayed together. The CCTV cameras’ footage was scanned and it showed that the suspect locked the house around 7am on March 17 but never returned. This raised suspicion. A search was launched, and the suspect was finally traced in Khoda and arrested. He was staying in hiding in densely-populated Khoda ever since,” the ACP added.

During interrogation, the suspect revealed that he ordered his daily food from a hotel and the deceased would cook in the house.

“The suspect said that he always objected to his (Netram) cooking in the house and also his friends’ visits. On the late night of March 16, the two had a fight over cooking. The suspect pushed the deceased and he suffered some injuries. Thereafter, the suspect offered him alcohol — a strong mix of foreign made and country-made liquor. This left him unconscious. The suspect left the house in the early morning of March 17 and fled after locking the house,” the ACP added.

Several police teams launched a search for the suspect who neither used his mobile phone, nor did he contact any of his family or friends after the incident.

Based on manual intelligence, the teams finally traced the suspect and arrested him from Khoda. A first information report (FIR) under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 103(1) (murder) was registered following a complaint from the victim’s family on March 29.