33-year-old murder case cracked, fugitive held in Narnaul

New Delhi: Thirty-three years after a truck driver was allegedly poisoned and murdered in Delhi for a consignment of copper, police have arrested a dismissed Army man accused of masterminding the crime.

Rajender Dagar, 59, had been absconding since 1993 and was declared a proclaimed offender in 1994. Police said he repeatedly changed his identity, appearance and location across states to evade arrest before being tracked down to Narnaul in Haryana on June 1 by a crime branch team led by DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

The case dates back to June 15, 1993, when Ram Singh, a truck driver from Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu, was killed at a hotel in the Lahori Gate area. “The murder was planned to rob a truck carrying a consignment of copper owned by Hindustan Copper Limited. Ram Singh was poisoned by Rajender and his associates before they targeted the vehicle and cargo,” DCP Yadav said.

Rajender had disappeared immediately after the crime, leaving investigators to trace a suspect who was around 25 at the time and is now nearly 60. The breakthrough came after police revisited old case records and court judgments, which pointed to his alleged involvement in similar crimes targeting truck drivers.

The team identified his native village in Rajasthan and mounted discreet surveillance on family members and their contacts. During this exercise, a suspicious mobile number surfaced. Though often switched off, its intermittent activity revealed movement across cities, frequently around hotels and guest houses.

Acting on this input, police carried out searches at 12–15 hotels and guest houses in Narnaul before locating the accused staying under a false identity.

During interrogation, Rajender told police that he spent years on the run, working at bars in Mumbai, selling vada pav and even working at a casino in Goa.

Police said Rajender, who was recruited into the army in 1984, was court-martialled and dismissed within a year. He is also wanted in another case registered at Kashmere Gate and has a history of involvement in cheating and vehicle theft cases.