Cuttack: In a major breakthrough, Cuttack police cracked the murder case of the woman, whose body was recovered from the banks of Kathajodi river near the Paramahansa area under Kandarpur police limits on Friday morning, within 30 hours of the crime and arrested the deceased’s husband and her two in-laws for perpetuating the crime.
While the victim was identified as Padmavati Samal, police on Sunday arrested her husband husband Balaram Dehuri and her in-laws were Jagannath Dehuri and Happy Dehuri
It is worth mentioning here that police seized the blood-soaked body of Padmavati from the banks of Kathajodi River on Saturday morning. The victim’s body bore gruesome injuries, while her face was completely disfigured to conceal her identity.
Briefing the media on the case on Sunday afternoon, Cuttack DCP Jagmohan Meena said, “One female dead body was found on the banks of Kathajodi River under Kandarpur police limits n Friday morning. Immediately, IIC, Kandarpur and ACP of the zone visited the spot and started investigation. Scientific team and dog squad also visited the spot and collected evidences from the spot.”
The weapon of offence was also seized from the spot and multiple teams were formed to verify CCTV cameras in the area, to verify the missing persons entries under different neighboring police stations, to enquire in the nearby Gram Panchayats about missing persons. Specific tattoos were also found on both the hands of the deceased which mentioned, which were widely publicized to ascertain the identity of the dead body. But no tangible result was obtained with these clues, the DCP said.
However, one vital clue was obtained from the spot. A blood-stained shirt and blood-stained pant was found from the water body near the spot and seized. It was found that both the wearing apparels were having a paper receipt of “New Star Tailors” stitched on them.
“We focused upon this clue and around 10 tailors with this name or similar name in Odisha were verified and their receipt design was compared with the receipt found at the spot. However, no match was found. Meanwhile, an unknown person sent a message on WhatsApp that such a shop exists in Bhanjanagar area of Ganjam,” Meena added.
So, request was made to Ganjam Police and SDPO, Bhanjanagar, ascertained the location of this shop in Jagganathaprasad PS area. However, an important clue was given by the tailor of this shop that such kind of paper receipts are being used in Gujarat. These are stitched at the inner side of the clothes on completion of the stitching (back of collar and pant). He could tell this with some confidence because he had worked in Gujarat as a tailor. So, contact was made with Gujarat Police who actively assisted Odisha Police in verifying the all the shops of name “New Star tailors” or with other similar names. Verification was being done in Surat and after verification of around 7-8 shops, the design on the paper receipt matched with the design of the paper receipt at one shop.
Based on this information, police nabbed Jagannath Dehuri from a Surat-bound train, while the other two were arrested in Odisha. Talking about the motive behind the crime, DCP Meena said, “The main accused was under the impression that his wife was involved in an extra-marital relation and he decided to kill her.”
