Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 19 Mar: Dehradun Police claim to have cracked the case of an unidentified woman whose body was recovered from inside a plastic sack earlier this month, with the arrest of her husband who has reportedly confessed to the crime.
It may be recalled that the woman’s dead body was found on 11 March in the compound of Balasundari Temple on Manduwala Road under Premnagar police station area. As the woman could not be identified, the case posed a major challenge for the police in establishing the identity of the deceased.
However, the police under the supervision of SSP Pramendra Dobal constituted eight teams and examined nearly 2,500 CCTV footages. The Police initially failed to get any concrete leads. Subsequently, an extensive verification drive was carried out in over 30 nearby slum clusters, during which around 5,000 people were questioned in an effort to trace the identity of the victim and the accused.
A breakthrough came this morning when police received crucial information indicating that the wife of a labourer had suddenly gone missing. Acting on the input, the police detained the suspect, Ranjeet Sharma, for questioning. During interrogation, he confessed to murdering his first wife, Roopa.
The Police investigations have revealed that the murder was the result of a domestic dispute. Roopa had reportedly earlier left her husband to run away with another man. However, she later returned to Ranjeet after leaving her second husband and was pressuring him to abandon his second wife. This would often lead to arguments between the two. On the night of 5 March, an argument broke out between the two, following which the accused strangled her to death.
After committing the crime, the accused kept the body concealed in his room for four days and, on 8 March, packed it in a sack and disposed of it in a forested area near a temple.
The accused, identified as Ranjeet Sharma, is a native of Sukhasan under Simri Bakhtiyarpur police station in Saharsa district of Bihar and was presently residing in Bhattowala, Premnagar. He has been arrested.
IG Rajiv Swaroop and SSP Pramendra Dobal have announced a cash reward for the police team that successfully cracked the case.
