A woman was allegedly murdered in East Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar by her estranged husband and his live-in partner for objecting to the couple’s relationship, the police said.
The killers are believed to have hidden her body in the bed box on which they ate and slept for two consecutive nights.
Killers kept up pretence
The couple also welcomed guests in the same room and appeared to be living a very “normal life” until the foul odour of the decomposing body became obvious.
According to the police, the couple had decided to dispose of the body in the Yamuna, but were forced to abandon their plan after an elderly man in the locality noticed them taking out the sack holding the body.
To avoid being questioned, the couple left the sack in the local dump yard, barely a few metres from their residence. Since they had crushed the victim’s face with a knife and a blunt object, the police were tasked with identifying her.
The deceased, 31-year-old Haleema, had married Feroz, also a waiter, 12 years ago. The couple had separated two years ago.
Deceased questioned relationship
“It was around a year ago that Feroz fell in love with Suman who worked in the same restaurant as him. Feroz and Suman began living together around 10 months ago,” said Rishi Pal, DCP (East).
After Haleema learnt of Feroz’s relationship, she started visiting him and demanded that he abandon Suman. Feroz, however, was unwilling to reunite with her — a fact that led to frequent quarrels.
The DCP said that Feroz and Suman decided to kill Haleema when she persisted with her demand. They allegedly strangled her when she visited last Wednesday.
They then hid the body in the bed box and waited for the right moment to dispose of the body. They tried to get rid of it on Friday, but were forced to dump it in the locality after they saw an elderly man looking at them with suspicion. Later, they locked their flat and left.
The police, meanwhile, had a tough time trying to identify the victim.
They even conducted door-to-door visits in the area to find out if any woman had been reported missing recently.
Once the deceased was identified, the police turned their focus towards those people in the area who had recently gone missing or vacated their flats.
This led them to Feroz and Suman, who were arrested from their hideout in nearby Shakarpur after the police placed their mobile phones under surveillance.
