Police on Monday arrested Motibabu Sah, who is accused of murdering his wife Aarati Sah on May 21, from Janakpur.

Aarati’s family had filed a police complaint against Motibabu and his family members accusing them of murdering Aarati.

Motibabu was remanded into judicial custody by the Supreme Court on December 6 while his father, Madan Sah, was released on a bail of Rs100,000 the same day.

Motibabu, who had been on the run since the Supreme Court’s verdict, was arrested from Sagun Plaza in Sita Chowk of Janakpur, said Superintendent of Police Mitra Bandhu Sharma.

Earlier, on June 20, a single bench of district court judge Ram Prasad Neupane had remanded Motibabu and his father Madan into judicial custody. However, on October 5, the Janakpur High Court had annulled the district court order.

Police said they took Motibabu into custody on Monday after receiving a tipoff that he was staying at a hotel in Janakpur.

“We had been actively looking for Motibabu. We were informed that he had been travelling back and forth between India and Nepal, and was in hiding,” Sharma said. “Then we received information that he had entered Nepal from India on Friday and was staying at a hotel in Janakpur.”

Motibabu will be transferred to the prison as ordered by the court, Sharma added.

Motibabu had allegedly booked a room at the Janakpur-based hotel under the alias Rabi Kumar Sah. He had told the hotel staff that he was an engineer employed with Raman Constructions and had been staying at the hotel for the past four days. He had shown his driver’s licence as identity proof, police said.

According to the hotel operator Rupesh Singh, multiple people would show up daily to meet Motibabu.

“He would have visitors until late at night,” Singh said. “We weren’t aware he had lied about his identity.”

Motibabu is a resident of Thapa Chowk in Janakpur Sub-Metropolitan City-9, Dhanusha. He had married Aarati, from Nagrain Municipality-8 of the same district, around two years ago. It was an arranged marriage and Binod Sah, Aarati’s father, had accused his son-in-law and his family of killing Aarati over insufficient dowry. According to Binod, he had provided Rs2.5 million in cash to Motilal’s family as dowry.

While Motibabu’s family claim that Aarati was pronounced dead at Kavya Hospital, where she had been taken immediately after she was found hanging at home, Aarati’s family accuse her husband’s family of beating her to death.

On June 20, Aarati’s relatives and well-wishers resorted to vandalism in Janakpur. The protesters hurled stones at the Dhanusha district court while the custodial hearing of the victim’s husband and father-in-law was underway.

Aarati’s father, Binod, her mother, brother, sister, maternal uncle and other relatives came to Kathmandu on June 16 to pressure the authorities for a fair investigation into the case. They staged a sit-in protest at Maitighar, Kathmandu, demanding action against the guilty.