Gzb suitcase murder: ‘Victim’ found alive
WARISHA BUMPED INTO A CONSTABLE IN ALIGARH. THEN THE POLICE REALISED THE DEAD WOMAN WAS SOMEONE ELSE
GHAZIABAD: On July 27, the police in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad found a woman’s body stuffed in a suitcase. They shared photographs on social media as part of an identification drive.
A man and his mother from Aligarh came forward. The elderly woman identified the victim as her 24-year-old daughter, Warisha, who goes by one name. They took the body to Aligarh, where the burial took place on July 29.
Warisha’s husband and in-laws were booked for dowry death and sent to jail. A police team from Ghaziabad got a reward of ₹15,000 for successful tracking of the family. The case was shut.
But there was a twist. On Monday, Warisha bumped into a police constable in Aligarh. And then, the realisation dawned on the police. The woman in the suitcase was someone else; she is yet to be identified.
“After the Ghaziabad police circulated the photographs of the body, Warisha’s family took notice and approached the police. Along with our officers, they went to Ghaziabad and identified the body...her husband and in-laws beat her up and harassed her for dowry; she fled their house on the afternoon of July 23,” Santosh Kumar Singh, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Bulandshahr, said.
Warisha was married to one Amir Khan, a Bulandshahr resident, on June 1. Warisha came to Noida, where she earlier worked with an electrical equipment company, and stayed there for couple of days. She returned to Aligarh on Monday.
The police said they will scrap the dowry death charge from the first information report (FIR).
“...other sections will remain as the in-laws harassed her. Her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law are in jail. We will inform the court about the development,” Singh said.
In Ghaziabad, the police said the identification was done by Warisha’s family members and the body was handed over to them by medical officials, who conducted the autopsy. “...we will now register a case of murder and destruction of evidence, and probe the murder of the woman whose body was found in the suitcase,” said Kalanidhi Naithani, SSP Ghaziabad.
“Our officials, however, got the viscera and the DNA of the deceased preserved...this will help us in tracing the identity of the woman whose body was found in the suitcase,” he added.
Bulandshahr SSP Singh said the cause of death of the woman found in suitcase could not be ascertained in the autopsy.
The police in Bulandshahr filed the FIR on July 28 against Warisha’s husband and her in-laws. They were booked for dowry death and cruelty, among other charges. The three were arrested on the same day and sent to 14 days’ judicial custody by a court in Bulandshahr.
“...it will be up to the investigating officer of the Ghaziabad police to investigate and trace the identity of the woman who was actually killed. The body can be exhumed in the presence of a magistrate...we may take legal action against Warisha’s mother and brother for identifying a wrong body,” said Diksha Singh, circle officer (city), Bulandshahr.