Facebook grounds fugitive doctor's runaway plans

Her story could give ideas to script writers. A love affair with a married man, a murder for revenge, a conviction, a fugitive, facial therapy to change appearance, a false identity with forged documents and, finally, a suicide note and a plan to flee India. But her run from the law ended courtesy an unlikely source: Facebook.

For Ravdeep Kaur, a gynaecologist from Punjab's Patiala town, the escape plan hatched to start a new life with a new name and in a new country got dashed as Punjab Police nabbed her near the India-Nepal border this week. The police tracked her from Facebook activity.

Patiala police officers said they were on Ravdeep's trail after she jumped parole and went missing Dec 15 last year.

It wasn't an easy job for the police.

To ensure that she was not tracked, Ravdeep did not keep or use any mobile phones. But the police got the better of her after tracking the Facebook (FB) accounts of her acquaintances.

It was when Ravdeep, under the assumed name of Arpita Jain, contacted one of her friends on FB that the police were able to zero down on her.

She was arrested this week from the India-Nepal border in Uttarakhand. The police recovered nearly Rs.13 lakh in cash and gold and diamond jewellery worth over Rs.80 lakh from her possession when she was caught.

To hoodwink the police, Ravdeep, while being out on parole in December to attend her father's cremation, left a suicide note and went underground. But the police did not believe her suicide story.

"She was staying in a one-room accommodation (in Kashipur) in a poor colony in Uttarakhand. This was done to avoid being noticed and get caught," Patiala district police chief Gurmeet Chauhan said.

Ravdeep was arrested and convicted for murder after she hired a granthi (Sikh priest), Manjit Singh, to kill additional district and sessions judge Vijay Singh in Patiala, 80 km from here, in October 2005.

The judge, with whom Ravdeep allegedly had an affair, was brutally killed when he went for an evening walk. He was stabbed at least 25 times with a sharp-edged weapon.

She had developed animosity towards the judge after he refused to marry her.

Ravdeep, who ran a private nursing home in Patiala, wanted Vijay Singh to divorce his wife and marry her. The judge, who had three daughters, refused.

The priest was promised Rs.500,000 by Ravdeep to kill the judge.

Ravdeep was convicted for the murder in March 2012.

Chauhan said Ravdeep, whenever she came out of prison on parole, collected ID cards against fake names.

Police officials said Ravdeep was planning to leave India using fake identity, including a fake voter ID. She got her facial therapy and dental treatment done in Patiala and Chandigarh to change her appearance.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)