Woman's half-burnt body found in suitcase; cousin held for murder in Delhi's Ghazipur

Shilpa Pandey, 23. (Image: NDTV)

The police on Monday arrested the man who killed his cousin, stuffed her body in a suitcase and set it on fire in Delhi's Ghazipur.

The incident occurred early on Sunday when the cops received a PCR call at around 4 am informing them about a partially burnt suitcase containing a person's body, Indian Express reported.

When the police reached the spot, they found the suitcase with a burnt human body. The body was burnt beyond recognition, the police could only identify its gender because of the long hair that was still intact.

The police registered a case of murder and destruction of evidence under sections 103(1), 238 and 3(5), of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and formed four teams tasked with reviewing the CCTV footage, tracking movements, and identifying the accused.

Abhishek Dhania, Deputy Commissioner of Police for East Delhi, told the media, "We didn't have any clue initially. Just a burnt suitcase and a burnt body. We started by scanning CCTV footage of the area where the suitcase was found."

Police used tools like Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and analysed technical and manual to hunt down the accused. “Evidence suggested that the body had been burnt around 1.30 to 2 am. Our teams narrowed down cars passing by in that area during that time and did end-to-end verification of each car’s details. One car led our team to a man living in Loni who said he’d sold his car to Amit,” the Indian Express quoted Abhishek Dhania, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East), as saying.

This lead led them to Amit Tiwari, a cab driver, and his friend Anuj Kumar, a mechanic. Both are 22 and residents of Khora Colony in Ghaziabad. According to the police, the car captured on CCTV camera was found in the area where Tiwari lives.

When the police took him in custody, he allegedly confessed to the crime and identified as Shilpa Pandey, 23, Tiwari's paternal cousin. “During his interrogation, he told us that Shilpa had run away from her home in Surat in November and had been living with him. The two were involved in an illicit affair and Shilpa had reportedly pressured Tiwari to leave his family and live with her permanently. She also threatened to implicate him and his family falsely,” said Dhania.

The accused told the police that on Saturday night, Amit was drunk when he had an altercation with Shilpa. In a fit of rage, he choked her to death, police said. He packed her body in a suitcase and called his friend Anuj to help him dump the body.

"The victim was a cousin in relation to the accused and pressured him to leave his family to permanently live together. The victim was also threatening to implicate him and his family falsely," a police statement said, adding that Anuj allegedly helped Amit destroy the body.

As per the police, Amit's original plan was to dump the body somewhere in western Uttar Pradesh. But soon after the duo set out, they crossed two checkpoints and Amit decided to dispose of the body somewhere closer.

The police said Amit bought diesel worth Rs 160 from a petrol pump. They then reached a deserted area, dumped the suitcase with Shilpa's body in it and set it on fire. Police said they arrested Amit from Greater Noida. Shilpa's parents, the probe has found, work and live in Gujarat's Surat, reported NDTV.