Three headless bodies found buried near forest in Jharkhand’s Khunti district

Headless bodies of three youths, who went missing on October 14 and were allegedly killed by the in-laws of one of the victims, were found buried near Podka forest under Arki police station in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, around 55 km from the capital Ranchi, on Wednesday, police said.

Police searched the forest but failed to find the heads till the evening. They are suspecting that all three heads might have taken away by animals as killers had separated heads from bodies before burying.

The three youths were identified as Mahendra Horo, Durga Munda and Mudka Munda. All three were in their twenties. Durga was doing his graduation staying in Ranchi, while Mudka was an intermediate student at a government high school in Khunti. They wee allegedly killed by Mahendra’s in-laws.

Sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Ashish Mahli said all three youths went missing on October 14 but their family members lodged an FIR on October 23.

“The family members had said Mahendra along with Durga and Mudka left for his in-law’s house in Kuriya on a bike on October 14. But, they did not return. The family members informed Arki police after they failed to find any of them,” he said.

Khunti superintendent of police Ashutosh Shekhar then set up a special investigation team (SIT) led by SDPO Ashsih Mahli to trace the missing men.

The investigation put Mahendra’s in-laws under suspicion and six of them were detained on Tuesday.

“We took six people including father in-law, a brother in-laws and a sister in-law of Mahendra into custody. During the interrogation, they admitted that they had killed three people. After their confession, we went to the Podka forest on Wednesday and recovered the bodies,”

Mahli said.

The SDPO said Mahendra’s elder brother had allegedly killed Mahendra’s wife and daughter in a forest in July and his in-laws suspected him as well. They killed him and his two friends in revenge, police said.

Mahli said Mahendra’s father in-law, brother in-law and sister in-law sent to jail on Wednesday. The officer said around seven to eight people were in the crime and the rest would be arrested soon.