The Dwarkapuri region of Indore lies as the backdrop of a crime that defies reason. A female MBA student’s classmate, Piyush Dhamnotia, has been arrested for the grisly murder of the victim. The inquiry highlights how the accused didn’t just kill her but stayed with the body and engaged in more heinous crimes before escaping to Mumbai to conduct rituals meant to communicate with her spirit.
A Deceptive Trap
That tragedy started on Feb. 10, 2026. The victim had left her home under the guise of getting her Aadhaar card fixed, her father dropping her off at the Collectorate. But she then told her sister that she was going to a birthday party with Piyush and would come back by 11:00 PM.
CCTV footage showed the pair walking into a room together. Inside, the scene turned dark when Piyush allegedly urged her for physical intimacy. Upon her refusal, claiming she was sick, he allegedly tied her hands and feet with ropes and blindfolded her, telling her that he had a “surprise gift” for her.
The Act of Cruelty
Then, as the victim continued to resist, Piyush’s conduct became murderous. He stuffed a cloth into her mouth, muzzling her cries, then sat on her chest, strangling her until she went unconscious. He stabbed her in the chest so hard that the knife blade snapped off within her body; to verify that she was dead.
The horror increased after the fact. Piyush fled the room to acquire beer, came back and sat beside the lifeless corpse to drink, the police sources said. He admitted to sexually assaulting the corpse during interrogation and soon changed clothes and fled, leaving the victim’s body uncovered.
“Soul” Rituals and Digital Manipulation
And to stymie the discovery of the crime, Piyush then sent a message from the victim’s phone to her father at 11:00 PM: “Dad, I’m not coming home tonight.” He also sent 11 videos to their college WhatsApp group, where he created a false trail.
Piyush’s mental state was said to have spiraled after he fled to Mumbai and Panvel. Fueled by a strange combination of guilt and obsession, he Googled, “how to summon a soul,” on YouTube. He said he lit incense sticks and had rituals in hotel rooms, claiming he wanted to apologize to the victim’s spirit and talk to her one last time.
Motive: Jealousy and Rejection
Piyush claimed he wanted to marry the victim during his three-day police remand. He said she was no longer talking to him for 15 days and was talking to a man, which set off his murderous rage.
The broken knife and the mobile phones have been recovered by the Indore police. As the investigation proceeds, the cold calculated coldness of the crime and the perpetrator’s occult-leaning delusions serve to illustrate a terrifying trend of obsessive violence among youth.
