| Balesh Kumar adopted the alias "Aman Singh" and successfully acquired counterfeit identification documents to sustain his new identity |
Former Indian Navy employee Balesh Kumar, 63, falsely portrayed his demise over a span of 19 years to evade authorities in connection with a 2004 murder case. In that year, he faced accusations of immolating two unsuspecting laborers inside his brother's vehicle in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Both Rajasthan and Delhi Police, as well as his own family, accepted his "death," even though his body had been severely burned beyond recognition. Remarkably, his father, Chandrabhan, who passed away in 2021, was able to identify the body as his son.
Balesh Kumar, originally from west Delhi, managed to elude capture for nearly two decades, living under the assumed identity of "Aman Singh" in Najafgarh. He even obtained fraudulent identification documents to sustain this new persona. In a surprising turn of events, Kumar also succeeded in relocating his wife and their two children to Najafgarh, an area in outer Delhi, starting in 2011.
Ravindra Singh Yadav, the special commissioner of police (crime branch), revealed, “Once his wife realized that enough time had passed and the risk of his capture had diminished, she joined him, along with their children. While he had adopted a new identity, his wife and children maintained their original identities.”
Kumar's capture took place on September 28 in Najafgarh on the outskirts of Delhi, where he was working as a real estate broker. His wife allegedly managed to escape when he was apprehended.
Chilling revelations emerged during Kumar's police detention, substantiating the allegations against him:
Balesh Kumar, a native of Haryana, received education up to Class 8. In 1981, he enlisted in the Navy and left in 1996. Following his Navy service, he established a transport company and relocated his family to Uttam Nagar in Delhi.
In 2004, Kumar and his brother Sunder Lal were implicated in the choking death of Rajesh at Delhi's Samaypur Badli, as per Kumar's statements to the police. The incident transpired during a heated argument over an alleged extramarital affair between Kumar and Rajesh's wife, while all three were under the influence of alcohol. Tragically, the dispute culminated in Kumar and his intoxicated brother choking Rajesh to death.
Subsequent investigations unveiled Kumar's elaborate escape plan. He hired two laborers from outer Delhi's Samaypur Badli on April 30 and drove them to Jodhpur in his brother's truck. In Jodhpur, the laborers were offered alcohol with their meals on May 1, and Kumar allegedly set the truck ablaze while they were inside. He deliberately left his documents behind. When the authorities arrived at the scene, one of the bodies was identified as Kumar's, while the identity of the other victim remains unknown.
During court proceedings, the police reported that Sundar Lal had been arrested, and Kumar was presumed deceased in the burning truck.
The quest to locate the families of the two laborers who tragically perished in the 2004 truck incident in Jodhpur has proven to be a challenging endeavor. According to Kumar, the laborers, Manoj and Mukesh, were only known by their first names.
Story written by Shaurya