Eleven days after Esther Anuhya (23), a software engineer from Machilipatnam, went missing from a railway station in Mumbai, her half-burnt body was found by the Mumbai police on late Thursday evening.
The body was found beside a high-drain, in highly decomposed state and partially-burnt, near Kanjurmarg, a Mumbai suburban area.
The girl, who was working with the Tata Consultancy Services- Goregaon facility, had come for Christmas holiday to Machilipatnam and had boarded the Visakhapatnam-Mumbai LTT Express on January 4 from Vijayawada railway station.
According to the Government Railway Police Superintendent Dr. Ch. Shyam Prasad, she made her last call to her father from Solapur at about 10 p.m. on the same day and promised to call him back after reaching her hostel at Andheri in Mumbai. Since she did not make the call, her father, a retired professor, lodged a complaint with the GRP in Vijayawada on January 5.
“We immediately despatched a person to Mumbai and identified her co-passengers who were also from Andhra Pradesh. We questioned two of the families (co-passengers) and they informed that the girl had alighted at Kurla complex,” said the SP.
According to the GRP SP, the girl owned two cell phones and the police was able to track signals of one of them from January 5 to 9. “Finally, we lost track of the phone and the last signal was from the Mumbai red light area of Kamatipura,” Mr. Shyam Prasad told The Hindu .
“As per the eyewitness and other circumstantial evidences, the girl alighted at Kurla Complex in good health and went missing thereafter. We have handed over the preliminary investigation report to the Mumbai police for further investigations,” said Mr. Prasad.
The partially-burnt body of the techie has been identified by her father who has been stationed in Mumbai ever since the girl had gone missing. The time and date of her death and the cause can be ascertained only after the post mortem procedure was completed, said Mr. Shyam Prasad.
The body will be reaching Machilipatnam on Saturday via Hyderabad and the Noble Missionary Parish and Church has called for a bandh at Machilipatnam on Saturday.
Our Staff Reporter from Machilipatnam reports:
Online support swells for a probe
With the news of Machilipatnam techie Esther Anuhya's death spreading quickly across the country, youths are raising their voice on social networking sites, seeking justice.
The kin of Ms. Anuhya, who is an active member of BandarBandhavulu(BB) group on Facebook, has been receiving overwhelming support online, from across the globe since Thursday. Revering Anuhya as Masula’ Nirbhaya, Raise Your Voice online group members are appealing to the youth to join them for justice over the heinous incident.
“Yesterday, it was someone I don't know and today it is my Classmate. I am not going to wait until it happens to my sister or stay calm anymore”, says a member of the group. At least 600 tech savvy youth have joined them in spreading the message, seeking their support to launch online petitions to the authorities respectively, the Mumbai Police.
On Ms. Anuhya’s facebook wall, her friend Joni uncle had posted: “We waited for you in hope. But our tongues cleaved to the roof. We stand in grief n tears….We are with you with Prayers and Intercessions….”. Vijay Penduparthi, one of the active 5600 members BB group, expressed his deep condolence saying “She (Anuhya) is no more...but her struggle must awaken everyone to act”.
Many techies both from her college, JNTU-K and TCS employees are expressing their tributes by intensifying their online fight for the justice by putting pressure on police authorities to nab the accused.
In Machilipatnam, locals are expressing their anger over the failure of Mumbai police failure in preventing the incident, despite receiving missing complaint from Ms. Anuhya’s parents on January 5. However, the 23-year-old Mumbai based techie had uploaded her last picture which was taken during the recent Christmas celebrations and made nine friends in the month of January.
