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Odisha man kills wife, her mother, buries them in backyard. How he got caught
Police said prime suspect Debashis Patra, reported his wife and his mother-in-law missing on July 16, a day after he allegedly killed and buried them in his backyard
Bhubaneswar: A 40-year-old pharmacist has been arrested from a north Odisha village on charges that he killed his estranged wife and mother-in-law, buried them in his backyard and planted a banana tree over the site to mask the crime, police said on Tuesday.
Madhumita Mohanty, the inspector-in-charge of Kuliana police station in Mayurbhanj district, said that the suspect, Debashis Patra of Sarapankha Nuagaon village, killed his wife, Sonali Dalai, 25, and mother-in-law, Somanti Dalai, 55, on July 15 and filed a missing persons report the following day.
He may have almost gotten away with the perfect crime, except for a wild elephant that strayed into the village on the evening of July 28, damaging property.
Mohanty said it was in this context that some villagers visited his backyard garden on Tuesday to assess the damage caused by the elephant. But the villagers also became suspicious of the way the banana trees had been planted. One of them jabbed the sharp end of a crowbar into the soil. It went in too deep.
“It confirmed their suspicions and they started digging and found the decomposed bodies wrapped in polythene,” the police officer said.
Police said there were injuries on the body, but only an autopsy would indicate the cause of death.
Mohanty said Sonali was his second wife. He had been previously married to a healthcare worker and is currently involved in a divorce suit. He married Sonali Dalai two years ago, but this relationship had also soured.
Police said Debashis Patra had invited his wife and her mother over to his house on July 13 on the pretext of holding discussions to reconcile their differences and killed them on July 15. On July 16, he reported their disappearance to the Kuliana police.
Mohanty said after killing the two, Debashis buried their bodies and planted banana trees over the spot.
He said the police did have their suspicions about Debashis’s version of events but were yet to achieve a breakthrough.
The bodies have been sent to Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College Hospital for post-mortem examination.
