New Delhi: A gruesome discovery shocked railway authorities at Lucknow‘s Gomti Nagar railway station on Sunday morning when the dismembered body of an unidentified woman was found concealed inside a trunk and a heavy-duty cargo bag. The horrific scene came to light inside the S1 sleeper coach after the Chhapra-Gomti Nagar Express completed its 503-kilometre journey from Bihar.
The train arrived at its destination at 6:35 am, and the coaches quickly emptied out. Soon after, a cleaning crew boarded the coach to begin their routine sanitary work.
While sweeping between the seats, the workers noticed an unclaimed metal trunk wedged out of place, along with a heavy cargo bag lying close to the restroom. When investigated closely a few stray drops of blood were found on the trunk, it raised immediate alarms among the staff.
The station authorities alerted the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) about the suspicious luggage by 10:30 am. Security teams quickly moved the locked box and cargo bag onto the platform for further examination. The officials with the help of a hammer broke the metal trunk.
#WATCH | Lucknow, UP | Lucknow Railways SP Rohit Mishra says, “During a routine check on a train which runs from Chhapra via Gorakhpur to Gomti Nagar, railway staff discovered a box and a bag in the sleeper coach. Upon notification, the station master was informed, who further… pic.twitter.com/w9jOhEywf7
— ANI (@ANI) May 18, 2026
Signs of violent struggle discovered
Inside the trunk, investigators discovered the blood-saturated torso of a woman wearing a salwar kurti. Her severed arms and legs were found separately, wrapped tightly in polythene layers and concealed beneath bundles of clothes inside the heavy cargo bag. Crucially, the victim’s head was entirely missing from the bags, making immediate identification exceptionally difficult for the arriving forensic teams.
According to GRP Superintendent of Police Rohit Mishra, the deceased woman appeared to be between 30 and 35 years old. Initial examinations indicate that she was murdered roughly 10 to 12 hours before the baggage was discovered. The medical examinations also revealed distinct injury marks around her neck and shoulders, suggesting she put up a fierce struggle against her attacker before her throat was likely slit.
Multi-state police investigation launched
The GRP believes the killer executed the murder elsewhere, waited for an opportune window to pack and conceal the remains and then snuck the luggage onto the train to mislead investigators and dispose of the evidence. The express train hits roughly 20 intermediate stations on its route via Gorakhpur. However, detectives are heavily focusing on a 30-minute scheduled halt at Bihar’s Thawe station where they suspect the bags were loaded.
A case has been formally registered against unknown persons. Three dedicated police teams have been set up to track down the perpetrator and the forensic experts have gathered all available prints from the coach while specialised teams are currently reviewing passenger reservation charts and scrutinising CCTV footage across all 20 stations along the transit route to identify the person responsible for loading the grim cargo.