A murder accused in northern India allegedly staged his own death using an artificial intelligence-generated image and securing an official death certificate in an attempt to escape a murder trial, police have said.
Rajkumar Rajbhar, 38, was arrested on Sunday in Mau district of the state of Uttar Pradesh, after police uncovered what they described as a conspiracy to convince a court that he was dead.
Mr Rajbhar was facing trial over the fatal shooting of Yogesh Singh in December 2016. Investigators allege he fabricated evidence of his death to avoid the proceedings, as well as demands to return money he had collected from people by claiming he would invest it in the stock market.
According to the police, the plan was set in motion on 30 May 2025 in neighbouring Ghazipur district.
Mr Rajbhar allegedly arranged a goat’s funeral and used an image of that to create an AI-generated illusion that it was his body on the funeral pyre to support his claim that he had died.
Photographs of a funeral procession and the final rites were also allegedly staged to lend credibility to the account, police said.
He subsequently obtained several documents, including a death certificate issued by the Mau Municipal Council, and submitted them to the court in an attempt to establish that he was no longer alive, according to investigators. He then went into hiding.
Additional superintendent of police Anoop Kumar said Mr Rajbhar had not completed his Class 12 examinations and worked as a stock market trader, reported the Press Trust of India. He had allegedly collected money from prominent individuals in several cities on the promise of investing it in the market.
Police believe the scheme was intended not only to help him escape the murder proceedings but also to avoid repaying those who had entrusted him with money.
Acting on intelligence, officers from the Kotwali Nagar police station, assisted by the Special Operations Group (SOG) and a surveillance team, arrested Mr Rajbhar near the Khwajajahanpur locality in Mau on Sunday morning.
A separate case has been registered against him over the alleged procurement and use of forged documents to falsely establish his death. Police said charges had been filed under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), India’s criminal code.
The murder case dates back to 19 December 2016, when Singh was shot dead near the Munshipura railway line in Mau. According to NDTV, the case was registered against Mr Rajbhar and his friend Sudarshan Rajbhar following a complaint by the victim’s nephew, Avinash Singh.
Mr Rajbhar had been on bail in the murder case, NDTV reported.
His alleged death ruse appears to have allowed him to evade the proceedings for around a year and a half, although the precise court orders and procedural history remain unclear from the available reports.
The case follows another reported incident in Uttar Pradesh in August, when a 16-year-old boy allegedly staged his own kidnapping after losing nearly Rs 300,000 (£2300) in online games.
According to the PTI, the teenager sent his father an AI-generated image showing him with blood on his face and tape over his mouth, and demanded a ransom of Rs 100,000.
When the father failed to arrange the amount, the teenager increased the ransom to Rs 200,000. The father subsequently contacted the police, who later found him at a friend’s house.
