Noida man killed woman over marriage demand, dumped headless body in drain

Headless body of an unidentified woman was found in an 8-foot drain in Noida last week. Her remaining body parts were later recovered from Ghaziabad.

A 32-year-old man from Noida was arrested on Friday after a headless woman’s body, with her hands severed at the wrists, was found in a drain in Sector 108 on November 6, police said, adding that her remaining body parts were later recovered from Ghaziabad.

File photo of police searching for evidence after the body of an unidentified woman was found. More than 55,000 vehicles were scanned and CCTV footage analysed by 40 police teams to track down suspect Monu Singh.(Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

Police were alerted last week that the headless body of an unidentified woman had been found in an 8-foot drain along the Noida–Greater Noida Expressway, around a kilometre away from the Noida Police Commissionerate. “Her hands had been chopped off at the wrists, and the body was naked,” a senior police officer said.

The police identified the woman as Preeti, a 33-year-old resident of Noida’s Sector 49.

More than 55,000 vehicles were scanned and CCTV footage analysed by 40 police teams to track down the suspect, Monu Singh, a resident of Sector 49.

“We have scanned more than 55,000 vehicles that entered Noida from 9 pm to 5 am after scanning thousands of cameras across the city. Forty teams were sent to Delhi–National Capital Region (NCR), western UP and other surrounding districts to check missing persons complaints of women,” additional commissioner of police Gautam Budh Nagar (law and order) Rajeev Narayan Mishra said.

“Initially, we found that a few vehicles visited the spot late at night and some of them left the spot after turning off their headlights. They all were questioned but nothing concrete was found,” Mishra added.

Subsequently, the police zeroed in on a bus attached to a private institution. “Singh was found after we got the details of the bus,” another officer, requesting anonymity, said.

Singh told the cops that he had been in a relationship with the woman for more than two-and-a-half years. “The woman, originally from West Bengal, was separated from her husband and had lived in Noida since 2023 with two minor kids. Singh was residing next door with his wife and two kids,” the officer said.

“Singh said that the woman was pressuring him to leave his wife and marry her. Additionally, she had loaned around ₹2 lakh to him in the past few years and was asking him to return it. She also reportedly threatened him that she would engage her daughters in flesh trade as they grow up. He also suspected that she was in an illicit relationship with someone else,” the officer added.

Police said that Singh had asked the woman to go on a ride with him on his bus.

“After visiting multiple places across the district, he took her close to the spot and attacked her using a sharp-edged weapon (a butcher’s knife) inside the bus. Later, he detached her head from the neck and her hands from the wrists in order to conceal her identity. Singh chopped off the woman’s hands on suspicion that her fingerprints might reveal her identity,” the officer said.

Singh then dumped the body in the Sector 108 drain and went to Ghaziabad, where he disposed of the other body parts, the officer added.

Police have recovered the other body parts as well and seized the bus for forensic analysis.

A murder case was registered against him at the Sector 39 police station and further investigation is underway.