Major Nikhil Handa misleading us, killer weapon yet to be recovered: Delhi Police on Army officer's wife's murder

A 40-year-old Army Major was arrested from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut on June 24, 2018, for allegedly killing a fellow officer's in west Delhi.

Pic courtesy: ANI

New Delhi: In the Army Major's wife's murder case, the Delhi police said on Wednesday that the weapon that they had in their custody was not the weapon with which Shailja Dwivedi was killed.

"The weapon that we have in our custody is not the weapon with which Shailaja was killed. Accused Major Nikhil Handa is giving us misleading information day after day. We have done 90% of the work and in coming days the truth will come out," Vijay Kumar, DCP West Delhi said, as per ANI.

The 40-year-old Army Major was arrested from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut on June 24, 2018, for allegedly killing a fellow officer's wife in west Delhi.

The woman's body was found with her throat slit near the Brar Square in the Delhi Cantonment area on June 23. Kumar had said earlier that the accused, Major Handa, was "obsessed" with the victim and wanted to marry her.

Another police officer had claimed that the woman and the accused had an affair, PTI reported. Major Handa, who is married with two kids, knew the women and her husband, also a Major in the Army, since 2015, when they both were posted in Nagaland, the DCP had said.

The woman's husband had spotted Major Handa in the CCTV footage of the hospital, where his wife had gone for a physiotherapy session and went missing from there and had told the police that he suspected him.

The police had then started looking for Handa and had found that he was in touch with a couple of friends and was hiding at the officers' mess in Meerut Cantonment.

A Delhi Police team had reached Meerut and had nabbed Major Handa when he was trying to escape from there in his silver-coloured car. After the arrest, they had informed their counterparts in Meerut.

The accused had come to Delhi from Dimapur on the pretext of treatment.

On June 23, he had met the woman and they had an argument while they were sitting in his car and he had allegedly slit her throat and thrown her out of the vehicle, police officers had said.

The woman had held on to the car after being thrown out, but the accused had run over her and had fled from the spot.

Two knives were found in his car, which indicates that he might have planned it in advance, the police had said.

Initially, the police were informed that a woman had died in an accident. Later, when they had inspected the body, it was found that her throat was slit.

Earlier, the woman was dropped at the Army Base Hospital in her husband's official vehicle by a driver on June 23.

Later, when the driver had come back to pick her up, he could not find her and had learnt that she did not attend her scheduled physiotherapy session. 

(With PTI inputs)