A case of love story involving four elderly men and a 30-year-old widow tea vendor turned ugly when a fifth old person also exhibited interest in the woman which led to his murder.

The sensational case was unearthed in Bihar's Nalanda district on Monday evening when district police arrested the four elderly accused along with the widow.

The deceased was identified as Tripit Sharma (75), a native of Awthawa village.

Dr Shibli Nomani, the DSP of Nalanda (Sadar) said: "Pino Devi (30), who is a widow, was running a tea stall at Asthawa village and four elderly persons, namely Krishna Nandan Prasad (75), Surya Mani Kumar (60), Banaras Prasad alias Loha Singh (65) and Vasudev Paswan (64) were the regular customers at Pino Devi's tea stall. They used to drink tea every day at her stall."

The four were attracted towards Pino Devi and they had expressed their feelings to her. They also used to visit her house. All was going well for them till a fifth elderly person, Tripit Sharma (75) also became a regular customer at the tea stall and expressed his love for Pino Devi.

Pino Devi accepted his friendly proposal and she would give him priority over the other four. Soon jealousy creeped in and the situation turned to such an extent that they decided to teach Sharma a lesson. Those four elderly persons shared their plan with Pino Devi and asked her to come alongside them. Pino Devi initially hesitated but later she agreed.

As per the plan, Pino Devi invited Tripit Sharma to her house on October 19. When he reached there, the other four elderly lovers were already present there and a verbal argument broke out which soon turned violent and one of them smashed a brick on the head of Tripit Sharma.

Sharma fell dead. After committed the murder, the other four smashed his face to hide the identity. The accused took the dead body and disposed of it in a water tank of an under construction building of the district polytechnic college.

The deceased's son Mithu Sharma along with other relatives started searching for him but then filed a police report. The local police were also searching for him and finally reached the water tank as the foul smell was coming from there. Sharma's body was found there.

"We have registered the FIR of murder against unknown persons and his son or any other relatives have not mentioned the names of any suspects. Tripit has no enmity with anyone. Initially, we were clueless about this case and there was no hint or lead about this case," Nomani said.

"Then we learnt about a mobile phone Tripit was having but it was not found at the crime scene. The phone was switched off when we dialled the number. Since the phone was switched off, we put the number on surveillance," Nomani said.

"Since the murder had happened on October 19 and accused get relaxed as police did not reach them and one month gone by. On Monday, the phone which was kept by Pino Devi, was switched on and the district police immediately found its location. We reached there and arrested her. When we strictly interrogated her, she broke down and revealed the entire sequence of events. Then we also arrested other four accused as well,"

"I have never seen such a sensational case in my entire career. The accused were booked under the charge of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidences," Nomani said. (SJ/IANS)