Woman’s corpse found in Gurugram drain 6 years ago identified, killer caught

On February 10, 2017, a woman’s body was recovered from a drain. On XX, the police were told that a woman working in a hospital disappeared in February 2017

Six-and-a-half years after a woman’s corpse was discovered in a drain in Gurugram, the police have finally identified her and arrested her suspected killer, police officers familiar with the matter said on Sunday, adding that they were able to identify the woman and the suspected killer based on a tip they received in a public interaction programme, which they recently began hosting.

Rang Bahadur Yadav allegedly murdered his second wife Anita, 30, in 2017, and fled to Jharkhand, from where he was arrested on October 11. (HT Photo)

On February 10, 2017, a woman’s body was recovered from a drain in Ghasola in Sector 49; however, it couldn’t be identified because it was in an advanced stage of decomposition, investigators said. An autopsy concluded that the woman was murdered, following which a first information report was registered at Gurugram’s Sadar police station against an unidentified suspect under Section 302 (murder).

Recently, the Gurugram police began hosting public interaction programmes on the directions of Gurugram police commissioner Vikas Kumar Arora, said Varun Kumar Dahiya, assistant commissioner of police (crime).

In one such programme at Sadar police stationa fortnight ago, they received a tip from a Badshahpur resident, Pradeep Nirala.

“Nirala, a scribe, told Gurugram police station house officer Subhash Chand that a woman working in a private hospital had disappeared in February 2017, and soon afterwards, a man working there had also disappeared,” said ACP Dahiya.

The missing woman was identified as Anita, 30, who went by her first name and worked as a fourth-grade employee at a private hospital in Gurugram, and the man as Rang Bahadur Yadav, 30, also a fourth-grade employee at the same hospital.

During the investigation, the police discovered that Yadav and Anita were married and that this was Yadav’s second marriage — he had deserted his first wife.

Suspecting that the body in the drain was likely Anita’s, the police tracked down Yadav to Matiala in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj, where they discovered he had married for a third time and was earning a livelihood by driving an e-rickshaw.

Yadav was arrested on October 11 and brought to Gurugram on transit remand on Thursday night. He confessed to strangling Anita to death on suspicion of infidelity, said a police officer associated with the case.

According to Dahiya, Yadav committed the murder with the help of at least two associates and dumped the body in the drain. “The murder occurred a day before the body was found. The suspects had attempted to prevent the corpse’s identification even through forensic techniques,” he said.

The police have sought a 10-day remand of Yadav from the court to question him at length. “We will interrogate him to determine who else was involved in the murder and helped him dispose of the body,” said ACP Dahiya.