Woman, neighbour murder Gurugram man; chop up his body
Officers said Sah’s body parts were found in the courtyard of Devi’s house, adding that she and Lal are currently absconding
Gurugram: More than a month after a Gurugram resident went missing, parts of his body were found buried in the courtyard of a house at Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh, police officers said on Monday, adding that they have arrested his girlfriend and her husband in connection with the case.
Police identified the deceased as Shivnath Sah, 45, and the arrested accused as Pushpa Gautam, 35, and Vinod Kumar Gautam, 39. They said Sah was murdered by Pushpa and her neighbour Poonam Devi, 32, and the two women then chopped up his body. Vinod and Devi’s husband Chintamani Lal later disposed of the body parts, police said.
Officers said Sah’s body parts were found in the courtyard of Devi’s house, adding that she and Lal are currently absconding.
Giving details of the case, police said that Sah and Pushpa worked at a cake manufacturing factory in Gurugram Sector 33, and were in a relationship for the past year or so. However, in June, Vinod learnt about his wife’s infidelity and moved the entire family back to their village Suwansa in Pratapgarh, UP.
Sah continued to keep in touch with Pushpa, and started pressuring her to leave Vinod and marry him. At this point, investigators said, Pushpa confided in Devi, and the two women hatched a plan to call Sah to Pratapgarh and murder him.
On July 4, Sah’s son Jitender, 18, who lives in Mumbai, filed a missing person’s complaint at the Gurugram Sadar police station, stating that his father has been missing since June 16.
Inspector Arjun Dev, station house officer of the Gurugram Sadar police station, said that during their investigation, they discovered that Sah had travelled to Pratapgarh on June 16, and his mobile phone had been switched off ever since.
“We called Gautam for questioning as her mobile number had cropped up in Sah’s call detail records, and nothing concrete surfaced initially. However, she remained under suspicion, and we called her again for questioning on Friday. After several hours of interrogation, she broke down and confessed to killing Sah,” Dev said.
The Gurugram police, led by Naharpur police post in-charge Surender Kumar, then travelled to Pratapgarh and alerted their local counterparts, and on Saturday, Sah’s head and chest were recovered from Devi’s property in presence of the Pratapgarh SDM.
Officers said other parts of his body were dumped in a nearby canal, and are yet to be traced.
“The weapons used to kill Sah and chop his body, which included an axe and a cleaver, were also recovered from the spot,” Dev said.
The SHO said they will soon hand over all the investigation documents to the Uttar Pradesh Police as the murder case was registered at Fatanpur police station on Saturday, and Pushpa and Vinod’s custody was handed over to them. He said police teams are on the look-out for Devi and Lal.