Man chops 'drug addict' wife into 10 pieces on suspicion of infidelity

Lucknow: In a redux of the Shraddha Walkar murder, a 46-year-old man in UP’s Sitapur allegedly killed his drug addict wife and dismembered her body into 10 pieces. According to the police, the accused also suspected his wife of infidelity. Accused Pankaj Maurya confessed to the crime after 14 days when cops found her wife Jyoti’s (38) severed head and the murder weapon. The two had been married for 10 years. Police said that Maurya had started suspecting Jyoti of infidelity nearly three months ago, since she had started hanging out with a bad crowd of men to score drugs. Maurya claimed that he had made up his mind to kill her. The incident came to light on November 8 when police recovered severed body parts of a woman stuffed in a sack in the forests of Gulheria village. G Sushil Chandrabhan, Superintendent of Police Sitapur, told media that the police recovered the woman’s torso, right hand and legs. Later, a team of forensic experts was called. “They told us that the body parts were of a woman, but we had to ascertain her identity,” Chandrabhan said. The blind murder created a huge uproar in the village. While police were looking for the head in order to ascertain the identity, local activists and media called for a speedy investigation. A few days later, police found disfigured head of a woman. The police had taken the assistance of experts to make a sketch based on what had been retrieved, the copies of which were distributed in Barabanki, Sitapur, Hardoi, Rae Bareli, Lucknow and Sultanpur to ascertain the woman’s identity. However, nothing helped cops identify the body until one Malti Singh of Barabanki, who claimed to be the mother of the deceased, contacted police. “When we showed her clothes recovered from the body, she immediately identified them as that of her daughter Jyoti," said Yadhvendra Yadav, CO, Sidhauli. Once the identity got established, the cops launched search for Pankaj, who was missing since November 15, reports claimed. On November 20, police found Pankaj and asked for his wife’s whereabouts to which he could not give any satisfactory answer. However, after firm questioning, he confessed to killing her, “On Tuesday, a police team raided his house and recovered blood stained clothes and a sharp-edged knife after which he was formally arrested,” the CO said. Pankaj told the police that he worked at a medical store and used to return home late at night. “I got to know from neighbours that Jyoti was often spotted with men and had also started taking drugs. I tried to reach out to her family, but they, too, were helpless,” Pankaj said, adding that on the night of November 8, after an argument he killed Jyoti and hacked her body in several pieces with the help of his friend Dujan Pasi. The body parts were dumped in a field about seven-km away from home. Pankaj had sent his two daughters and son to his uncle’s place before executing the crime. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.