Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda announced on Monday that they have identified the key suspect and are working to arrest him, two days after the body of a 29-year-old woman was discovered cut into more than 20 pieces and kept inside a refrigerator at her rented home in a Bangalore shocker.
When answering the reporters, Dayananda stated, “I cannot provide additional facts about the probe. He is an outsider (not from Karnataka).”
Meanwhile, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara stated that the police had already gathered data about the incident and that he will not be able to release them. “We are confident of nabbing the accused soon. We need to see if there was one person or two persons involved in the incident. We don’t know about it as we speak,” he stated.
Statements from Officials
On Saturday, authorities discovered Mahalakshmi’s body at her rented house in Vinayaka Nagar in Vyalikaval. She worked as a team leader for a costume business in Malleshwaram and lived alone. The police initiated the case based on a complaint filed by Mahalakshmi’s mother, Meena Rana.
According to a police officer involved in the inquiry, Mahalakshmi’s body was turned over to her family following a postmortem examination.
“During the course of the investigation, we also found Mahalakshmi had separated from her husband Hemant Das and that the couple had domestic disputes,” according to the officer.
According to a police inspector at Nelamangala police station, Mahalakshmi filed a complaint against Hemant Das in February, alleging that he assaulted her.
Das also reported her, alleging that she was having an extramarital affair. Family members of the couple attempted to diffuse their argument after the police took a Non-Cognizable Report (NCR).
Das said on Sunday that he married Mahalakshmi six years ago and they have a daughter. Additionally, Das said that Mahalakshmi was having an extramarital affair with an Uttarakhand barber.
“They both had an extramarital affair that caused the problem, which I found sometime between April and May of last year. We have been separated for the past nine months, and I am not sure if she has been in contact with the man. When she separated, he was advised not to meet her, but I had no idea if he did. My kid spent the first four months with her (Mahalakshmi), and then she moved in with me in Nelamangala,” he revealed.
Das further stated that she visited Nelamangala a month ago and met their daughter. “She was calm and did not talk much about her life,” he said.
The brother also stated that they intended to meet on August 15 to celebrate Independence Day. He claimed Mahalakshmi went incommunicado on September 4.
The Bengaluru police have filed a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 103 (1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in the murder case. On Sunday, a forensic team and a dog squad arrived at the crime scene to help with the investigation.
Similarities of Shraddha Walkar Case
The killing of a Bengaluru woman evoked memories of the 2022 Shradda Walker case in Delhi.
Shraddha Walkar’s live-in partner Aftab Poonawalla murdered and dismembered her in Delhi in 2022. Poonawalla allegedly murdered Walkar and sliced her body into 35 parts, which he then stored in a refrigerator before disposing of them throughout the city over several weeks.
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