Mother fights procedural wrangles for 40 months to perform daughter’s last rites
The young woman had gone missing in 2020 and shortly afterwards, when a burnt and headless body was found, they identified it and claimed it as that of their missing kin but their claim got mired in procedural wrangles, including technicalities and ambiguous DNA reports.
Kanpur After a gruelling 40-month long technical and procedural battle, a family in a small village in Jaswant Nagar, Etawah, finally laid their daughter to rest on Thursday night.

The young woman had gone missing in 2020 and shortly afterwards, when a burnt and headless body was found, they identified it and claimed it as that of their missing kin but their claim got mired in procedural wrangles, including technicalities and ambiguous DNA reports.
However, despite repeated setbacks, the deceased woman’s mother Bhagwan Devi fought a relentless battle for a dignified farewell to her daughter Rita.
And now, she is gearing up for another fight: that of making sure that those behind her daughter’s death are duly punished.
The incident dates back to 2020, when a 22-year-old woman from Chak Salempur village mysteriously disappeared from her house on September 19, leaving her family in anguish. On September 26, 2020 , a badly burned body was found in a field outside the village, with the head missing.
Bhagwan Devi claimed the body, identifying it as her daughter Rita on the basis of clothing and footwear found nearby. The police were caught in a bind due to procedural requirements and insisted on DNA verification.
SSP Etawah, Sanjay Varma said :”We had a claim on the body and procedurally we cannot take words for facts. We had to make sure the body was indeed that of the woman’s daughter and DNA test was the only way to find out.”
Bhagwan Devi’s son Saurabh, 24, said at that time the police assured it would get the DNA test done and the body that was reduced to a skeleton was put in a freezer in the mortuary. But the first DNA sample was sent for analysis on January 2, 2022, nearly 17 months after the body’s discovery, he said, adding it took lot of effort on the part of his mother to make the police act.
However, the report received from Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Lucknow, on March 26, 2022, was inconclusive, citing poor sampling as the reason. It also sought a better and larger sample.
Efforts continued and this time the police took Bhagwan Devi and Saurabh to FSL, Lucknow where a second sample was collected on August 18, 2022, under expert supervision. However, the subsequent report, received on July 10, 2023, found that the sample did not match with the samples of Bhagwan Devi and Saurabh .
Frustrated by the delay, the mother-son duo intensified their clamour for the release of the body, even if only for cremation. Their plight caught the attention of local newspapers and eventually reached the Allahabad high court, prompting further action.
In October 2023, the court intervened on the petition of Bhagwan Devi , pushing for progress in the case as well as ordering registration of a murder case. Responding to this, SSP Varma, who was posted in Etawah, decided to send the samples to FSL Hyderabad for analysis. Two samples were dispatched on October 26 and another on December 23, 2023 with the report confirming a match with the samples of family members’ DNA on January 30, 2024.
“The report of both the samples clearly said they matched with those of family members,” said Varma. Following this , a committee comprising sub -divisional magistrate (SDM) Deep Shikha and circle officer, Jaswant Nagar, Atul Pradhan was formed to oversee dignified last rites, as per the family’s wishes. Pradhan said the family buried the body outside the village near the field where the remains were found.
Meanwhile, the Etawah police have relaunched their investigation into Rita’s death. The family had lodged an FIR of murder in October last year against a local man, Ram Kumar, and four others. But since the corpse’s identity was not established, the investigation was pending.
With the identity now confirmed, a special team of 10 officers, led by CO Jaswant Nagar Atul Pradhan, has been tasked with solving the mystery behind Rita’s death .
ADG Kanpur Zone Alok Singh said, “The team has started working and will shortly unravel the mystery behind the young woman’s death .”
