Puneet Puneet, the Indian fugitive hit-run driver who skipped out on justice in Australia four years ago, had carefully avoided making contact with his immediate family since his return home.
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But when the police, acting on information from Australia, finally swooped on the 24-year-old on Friday night, he was attending to the most important of family matters.
Accompanied by his father, Puneet was at a hotel in the state of Haryana to meet the relatives of the woman he hoped to marry.
Victoria Police last year offered a reward of $100,000 or more than 5 million Indian rupees - an extraordinary amount of money in a country where the average annual salary is about $1000 - for leads that led to his arrest.
Punjab police inspector Bikramjeet Singh, who led the arrest, said that since it had come from a tip-off by an informer, police would be asking for that person to be paid the reward.
H.S. Mann, Senior Superintendent of Police for Patiala district in Haryana's neighbouring state of Punjab, told reporters: ''He was putting up in Noida for the last few months and was planning to marry a girl there. We had got a tip-off yesterday that he was coming to meet a friend in Panipat [in Haryana] and we laid a trap and arrested him.''
Thousands of kilometres away in Australia, Puneet's dramatic capture also came as surprise to his victim's family.
Dean Hofstee's mother, Fran, told Fairfax Media news of Puneet's rearrest had caused the family to relive past sorrows.
''We're quite shocked and shaken up,'' she said. ''There is a feeling of relief, but for us it is happening all over again.''
Ms Hofstee said she was ''very grateful'' to both the Australian and Indian authorities, who had fulfilled their promise of refusing to give up the chase.
''None of us expected to hear anything - it's been over five years and India is a big place,'' she said.
Noida, where Puneet had been living, is a satellite city on the fringe of India's capital, Delhi.
The city draws in thousands of young men a month looking for jobs, education, or opportunity. It was an easy place for a young north Indian man to disappear into.
Fairfax Media understands Puneet was working in a call centre.
His family, who live in the Haryana town of Panchkula, had their phones tapped by local police and were required to sign affidavits that they had had no contact with him and did not know where he was.
Puneet fled Australia in 2009 after he was convicted but before he was sentenced for a horror smash on City Road in Southbank that killed 19-year-old Dean Hofstee and seriously injured his friend Clancy Coker.
Puneet, also 19 at the time, was driving at 150km/h at 1am, and initially told police he had sore eyes and had swerved to avoid a cat on the road.
He pleaded guilty to culpable driving and was due to be sentenced but fled the country on a passport he got from a friend who was later jailed for perverting the course of justice.
Puneet is now in prison in Patiala and will face an extradition hearing.
Indian authorities have indicated they have no opposition to Australia's claim, and in January 2011 a treaty came into force between Australia and India allowing for the extradition of ''any persons who are wanted for trial, or the imposition or enforcement of a sentence … for an extraditable offence''.
The new treaty means Australia does not have to prove Puneet's guilt to Indian authorities, only ''reasonably establish that the person sought has committed the offence''.
With Som Patidar
