New Delhi: A charred body, a burst gas cylinder and a locked flat in North Delhi initially pointed investigators towards a tragic household accident. Within days, that assumption began to crumble, as Delhi Police followed a trail that would eventually rely on gait analysis to expose a murder staged as a fire.
As reported by The Indian Express, the case centred on the death of Ram Kesh Meena, a 32-year-old UPSC aspirant living in Gandhi Vihar, a densely packed neighbourhood near Delhi University’s North Campus that houses students and government job hopefuls from across the country.
In the early hours of October 6, 2025, Delhi Fire Services were called to Meena’s fourth-floor flat after a fire broke out. Firefighters found a body charred beyond recognition, a destroyed LPG cylinder and piles of books. Police initially registered a case of death by negligence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, treating the incident as a gas-related accident.
That theory soon came under scrutiny. Meena’s father, who travelled overnight from Rajasthan’s Dausa district to identify the body, told investigators that his son was careful and responsible, making it difficult to believe he would ignore a leaking cylinder. His doubts pushed police to re-examine the scene and surrounding evidence.
CCTV footage from the building and nearby streets became a turning point. Cameras showed two masked individuals entering the building on the night of the incident. Later, a woman was seen leaving with two men shortly before the fire broke out. The woman was identified as Amrita Chauhan, Meena’s live-in partner.
The investigation then shifted from negligence to homicide. Chauhan, a forensic science graduate, was arrested along with her former boyfriend Sumit Kashyap and an associate, Sandeep Kumar. Both men worked as LPG cylinder distributors. Police reconstructed the background leading up to the crime. Meena, an engineering graduate who had cleared the Joint Entrance Exam years earlier, had chosen to pursue the civil services full-time and had been preparing for nearly a decade. Chauhan, originally from Moradabad, had studied forensic science and had previously been in a relationship with Kashyap.
According to investigators, tensions rose when Chauhan decided to return home, where her family had begun looking for a groom. She became anxious about intimate videos she feared Meena had stored on a hard disk. After sharing her concerns with Kashyap, the two allegedly planned to retrieve the device.
On the night of October 5, Kashyap and Kumar entered Meena’s flat with Chauhan’s help. Meena was assaulted and strangled using a mobile phone charger cable. The accused then attempted to disguise the murder as an accident by setting the body on fire and leaving a gas cylinder open to create the impression of a blast. The post-mortem report contradicted that narrative, revealing injuries around the neck and signs that the victim may have been alive or unconscious when set on fire.
A key element of the probe was the use of gait analysis. Delhi Police compared CCTV footage of the suspects’ movements with recreated walking videos, analysing stride, posture and limb movement using specialised software. Experts from Gujarat examined footage from five different locations, helping police establish the identity and movement of the accused.
Technical checks further weakened the accident theory. A burnt air conditioner recovered from the flat showed no compressor leakage, ruling out equipment failure as a cause of the fire. Call detail records placed Chauhan near Meena’s residence at the time of the incident, reinforcing the police case. The hard disk and other belongings were later recovered during raids in Moradabad. In all, 55 witnesses were examined and an 813-page chargesheet has been filed at Delhi’s Tis Hazari Court, which is yet to take cognisance of the matter. The case stands out for how Delhi Police followed footsteps on camera to undo a staged fire, using gait analysis to convert what first appeared to be an accident into a detailed murder prosecution.
BI Bureau
