Fugitive Captured in Mumbai After Years on the Run for Child’s Murder

Mumbai/New Delhi, 30th December 2024: On Saturday morning, 46-year-old food delivery agent Akshay Kumar Tripathi, residing in Mumbai’s Chembur, was arrested by a team from the Delhi Police Crime Branch as he left for work.
Tripathi, whose real name was Ajay Kumar Tripathi, had a criminal past. He was a former storekeeper at a banking and investment firm and was convicted for the 2000 kidnapping and murder of a child named Neeraj after the ransom demand went unmet. According to Sanjay Kumar Sain, DCP (Crime Branch), Tripathi had been living with his second wife and son, unaware of his criminal history.
Tripathi had been on the run since 2021 after he jumped parole while serving a life sentence for the murder. He had changed his name and forged documents to evade authorities. This was not his first escape; in 2010, he absconded during a 30-day parole and remained at large for five years before being captured in Agra in 2015.
During his time on the run, Tripathi married in 2011, and his wife was initially unaware of his criminal background. It wasn’t until 2015 when the police came searching for him, that she learned the truth.
In 2021, Tripathi was granted emergency parole during the CoCOVID-19andemic, which was extended by a Delhi High Court committee. He was supposed to surrender after 56 days, but instead went into hiding again. The Crime Branch team, led by Inspector Rakesh Kumar, eventually traced him to Agra, where they discovered he had left the city years earlier.
After his second parole jump, Tripathi went to live with his wife and son, but their relationship deteriorated due to his past. His wife, struggling to raise their child alone, ultimately died by suicide. Tripathi then moved to Mumbai, where he assumed a new identity and began working as a delivery agent. His new family, unaware of his past, had no idea of his criminal history until his arrest on December 29.
In late 2021, Tripathi remarried in Mumbai and enrolled his son in a boarding school. The authorities, working with the delivery company and its staff, were able to locate him after days of surveillance.
Tripathi was brought to Delhi on Sunday and taken back to Tihar Jail to serve his sentence.