Four days later, on Sunday, police claimed to have cracked the case by arresting two men — one of whom has turned out to be the Colonel’s former sahayak (batman). “Three accused have been identified and we have arrested two of them — Mahendra Goswami, former batman of the retired colonel and Akhtar Ali, a carpenter who was working in the house,” said Janmejay Khanduri, SSP of Nainital district. Another man is on the run.

Khanduri said the trio broke in the house around 11.30pm and were challenged by the officer’s wife and mother. “The accused killed both of them and stole 150g of gold and silver items beside Rs 25,000 cash,” Khanduri said. “They are believed to have been in the house till 4 in the morning. We have recovered the cash and the silver items from them,” Khanduri said.When the incident happened, Sah was away at Haridwar. His son and daughter-in-law are also in the defence forces and were not home at that time. Sources said that Goswami had served as Sah’s sahayak in the Mahar regiment and was still in the Army. “On preliminary interrogation, Goswami has revealed that when Sah retired, he, too, took leave from the Army for two months and used to come to Sah’s home and help him with odd jobs. He had become like a trusted family member,” said Yashwant Singh Chauhan, assistant superintendent of police, Haldwani.

(Inputs by Yogesh Kumar & Yeshika Budhwar