New Delhi, Nov 28 (PTI) Curious residents crowded a narrow lane in Pandav Nagar on Monday to try to catch a glimpse of the house where a man was allegedly killed and chopped into pieces by his wife and stepson, in a chilling recall of the Shraddha Walkar murder case.

Anjan Das (45), his wife Poonam (48) and stepson Deepak (25) lived on the first floor of a dingy apartment in the east Delhi colony for the past 4-5 years.

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The first floor has a separate entrance through the narrow stairway, which opens into a small verandah. Painted in aqua blue and littered with bundles of old clothes and water-filled bottles, the verandah shows no sign of the grisly murder that is alleged to have taken place there. Both rooms of the apartment are now locked.

Das, who worked as a lift operator, was allegedly killed on May 30 by Poonam and Deepak.

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Similar to Shraddha Walkar case, Poonam and Deepak allegedly kept the dismembered body parts in a fridge before dumping them across east Delhi, the police said on Monday.

Their landlord lived on the ground floor but remained unaware that Das had been missing for several months.

The neighbours trying to peer through the apartment windows from their balconies had no inkling about the sort of family that resided there or that the man had been missing.

They said they did not know much about the family as they kept to themselves.

Oblivious to the conspiracy that was hatched in their neighbourhood, the neighbours were in shock and trying to comprehend what could have made the woman carry out a bone-chilling crime.

"I learnt about the case on the phone and came to see what happened. I live in another lane and did not know what happened. I was curious, so I told my friend to come with me," said 19-year-old Sachin, sitting at a staircase at the entrance.

Mamta Saxena dropped by at the house of her friend in the same lane to get details about the case.

"How can someone be so ruthless? People these days are killing each other like insects. It does not appear to be real but like a crime movie. This is so similar to the Mehrauli case," she said.

Local residents are also worried that the case has ruined the area's reputation.

"Nobody will want to rent accommodation in the area. Why would they? Even landlords will not want to rent out their homes out of fear," said a woman in her sixties.

The case came to the fore when Das' body parts were found at the Ramlila Ground in east Delhi's Kalyanpuri on June 5.

Over the next few days, his legs, thighs, skull and a forearm were recovered following which a case was registered under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence and giving false information) of the Indian Penal Code at Pandav Nagar police station.

The victim has a wife and eight sons in Bihar, but he hid this fact from Poonam, the police said, adding that a team would be sent there to collect DNA samples of Das' kin to match the body parts.

The mother-son duo killed Das over suspicion that he was eyeing his stepdaughter and stepson's wife. They had disposed of the body parts at different places in east Delhi over three to four days and buried the skull, they said.

The accused told the police that they mixed sleeping pills in Das' drink and, after he fell unconscious, used a knife and a dagger to kill him. They then slit his throat and waited for the blood to drain out completely before chopping it up.

The case is eerily similar to the murder of 26-year-old Walkar in the national capital.

She was allegedly killed after a confrontation with her 28-year-old live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala who then sawed her body into 35 pieces and kept them in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in south Delhi's Mehrauli before dumping them across the city.

Delhi Police arrested Poonawala on November 12.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)