Tamil Nadu police on Saturday on late Saturday arrested 22-year-old M Manik Uddin Laskar and his wife, Bhagabati Maji from Manipur’s Jiribam district in connection with the murder of a woman whose dismembered body was discovered in a red trolley suitcase aboard a Delhi-bound train earlier this month, police said on Sunday.
On August 5, passengers travelling on a Tamil Nadu Express train noticed a foul smell emanating from a red trolley suitcase in an unreserved compartment after the train reached Agra. Railway police were immediately alerted. They opened the suitcase and recovered the headless and dismembered body of a woman.
The Tamil Nadu railway police at the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MG Ramachandran Central Railway Station (Chennai Central Railway Station) were informed about the incident, along with the Agra railway police. A detailed probe was then conducted.
After monitoring over 350 surveillance videos, the police team identified a couple who were seen carrying the suitcase at Chennai Central Railway Station.
The Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MG Ramachandran Central Railway Station or the Chennai Central Railway Station is one of the major gateways in Tamil Nadu, where lakhs of passengers arrive and travel to various locations across the country every day.
Meanwhile, it emerged that a complaint was filed last week at the Guduvancherry police station by the deceased’s son, reporting that his mother was missing.
A detailed investigation by the railway police, led by superintendent of police P Rajan, along with a team from Guduvancherry police, led to a raid at a rented house on Mosque Street in Guduvancherry on August 23, where additional body parts of the victim were recovered.
Police found that the body parts were kept in a large cooking vessel in the house. Through forensic examination and DNA analysis, the body was identified as that of 38-year-old Hayathun Nisha, a native of Odisha.
Police said the two suspects were staying at the residence and had known the victim for several years.
The Guduvancherry police later converted the case from a missing-person case into a murder case and began looking for those involved in the crime and the motive behind the murder.
Multiple special teams were formed to identify the suspects. Late on Saturday, a Tamil Nadu police team nabbed Manik Uddin Laskar and his wife, Bhagabati Majhi, from Manipur.
Manik Uddin Laskar is a resident of Dakshin Krishnapur, Sonabarighat, in Assam’s Cachar district, while his wife, Bhagabati Majhi, is from Radhpur in Odisha’s Kendujhar district.
Police said that after placing the red trolley suitcase on the Tamil Nadu Express train on August 3, the couple fled to Manipur.