YouTuber Arrested After 25 Years on the Run: Delhi Crime Branch Cracks 1995 Kidnapping-Murder Case
Delhi/ Gaziabad: In a breakthrough that closes a decades-old case, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police has arrested a fugitive convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 13-year-old boy, more than 25 years after he vanished while out on bail.
The accused, identified as Salim Vastik, was picked up from Ghaziabad on Saturday.
Police say he had been living under a carefully constructed false identity, even going to the extent of declaring himself “dead” in official records to avoid capture.
According to investigators, the case dates back to 1995, when Vastik, along with an associate named Anil, abducted the teenage son of a Delhi-based businessman and demanded a ransom of ₹30,000.
The boy was later killed. Vastik was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, after being released on bail in 2000, he disappeared without a trace.
For years, he managed to stay off the radar—moving across states, taking up small jobs, and constantly changing locations.
Police say he worked as a carpenter in parts of Haryana, including Karnal and Ambala, before eventually settling in Loni, Uttar Pradesh, around 2010.
There, under the same assumed identity, he opened a clothing shop and quietly built a new life.
What makes the case even more startling is that during his years in hiding, Vastik reinvented himself as a YouTuber, gaining local recognition while successfully evading law enforcement.
The turning point came earlier this year. On February 27, Vastik was injured in a violent attack and admitted for treatment.
During medical procedures, his fingerprints were recorded—routine, but crucial.
When those prints were run through police databases, they triggered a match with records from the 1995 murder case.
Investigators say that a single match unraveled the entire façade.
Once his identity was confirmed, teams from the Crime Branch moved quickly and arrested him.
Officials described it as a rare instance where old forensic records and modern database systems converged to crack a long-cold case.
Police are now piecing together the full timeline of his years on the run, including how he managed to manipulate official documents and remain undetected for so long.
For the victim’s family, the arrest comes after decades of waiting—bringing a measure of closure to a crime that had all but faded from public memory, but never from theirs.
