A shocking murder case has been unearthed from Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur district, where a 42-year-old man is in jail for allegedly murdering a 38-year-old married woman, dismembering her body and dumping the remains at different locations in an attempt to hide the crime.
The accused, named Hemal Khakharia alias Dilip, is from Gujarat and was arrested on Sunday night after a police encounter, police said. The victim is Reshma Khan alias Sana, who was married.
The accused had brought Sana from Babatpur in Varanasi to a rented accommodation in Teachers' Colony under the jurisdiction of the Madiyahu police station in Jaunpur, said the police.
For instance, sources said the two had a heated argument over a phone conversation. The feud reportedly escalated late at night, police said.
Station House Officer Deependra Singh said the accused attacked the woman while she was asleep.
They got into a dispute over a phone conversation, the police officer said. “And the accused slit the woman’s throat with a knife when she was asleep."
After the murder, the accused dismembered the victim’s body and disposed of body parts at different places to destroy evidence and mislead investigators, police said.
The crime came to light during a police investigation, and the accused was identified after a police encounter, police said. Authorities have not yet disclosed whether the body has been recovered or where the remains were found, as the investigation is still ongoing, said a police official.
Police said forensic teams have collected evidence from the crime scene and the accused is being questioned to establish the sequence of events and determine whether anyone else was involved in the crime.
The incident has once again raised concerns over violent crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh.
In April of that year, an extremely disturbing case was reported from Deoria district: the body of a 19-year-old woman was found near a hut in the Baraon Dih village. A cloth noose was found hanging inside the hut and villagers suspected she had been murdered. Police launched an investigation into the case to determine the circumstances of her death.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) found that Uttar Pradesh had nearly 7.93 lakh cases in 2023 across different categories—one of the highest in terms of number of cases due to the state’s large population. The state has also been the center of high crime, and the police and crime detectives have been constantly calling for the state to do better in order to curb the number of crimes.
The Jaunpur murder case is still under investigation, and police will file more charges when forensic reports and other evidence are available, they said. They asked the public not to spread unverified information as the investigation continues.
