Murder discovered piece by piece

Chopped parts of an unidentified woman's body found in a gutter in the Capital's posh Vasant Vihar locality, about two hundred metres away from the local police station

Murder discovered piece by piece

Chopped parts of an unidentified woman's body found in a gutter in the Capital's posh Vasant Vihar locality, about two hundred metres away from the local police station

The beauty of the female form has over the years inspired many artistes, poets and masterpieces over the years. That form was found in an ugly display on Sunday at south Delhi's posh Vasant Vihar area. An unidentified girl's chopped body parts were discovered in a gutter just 200 metres away from local police station. Three pieces, which included two legs and the upper body part, without the head, were found in a semi-decomposed state, soaked in the dirty drain water.

Footnote: Cops try to retrieve one of the body parts, a foot (encircled)
from the ditch. Pic/ Subhash Barolia

Wake-up call
A PCR call was made by a passer-by at around 1.55 pm, who saw a pig eating the flesh off the hands in a gutter in the posh Vasant Vihar locality. A police team rushed to spot and search was intensified to recover the remaining parts of the body. After the police found the two legs, it was pegged down as a possible case of murder. The girl could not be identified as the head is still missing.

Fishing: The body parts were found floating in the gutter near a temple.
Pic/ Subhash Barolia

"After the PCR call was made by locals, we immediately rushed to the spot and found that pigs were feeding on the pieces. First, we found the upper part of the body and then after sometime we came to know that even the legs were floating in the gutter. Initial investigations suggest that the corpse was chopped into pieces and it could be a murder. We have preserved the body," said a senior police official.

"Skeletal parts of an unidentified body have been found in a drain near a jungle close to Baba Gangnath mandir in the area. The fleshy parts had been eaten by animals. The body has been preserved for post mortem. Efforts are on to identify the victim," said Chhaya Sharma, DCP (south).

Identity crisis
According to the police officials, they have found marks of nail polish on the toes, one of the indications that the body is that of a woman. Although cops were able to recover the upper body part, which was being eaten by pigs, in a short span, it took them almost 1-2 hours to find the two legs which were floating nearby in the gutter.

55-year-old Ramesh Mahato, a local, was at the crime spot for more than two hours. "Earlier the police came and found the upper part and then they took it back to the police station. But after around 1-2 hours, someone saw a leg floating and the police was informed immediately," he said.

Foul play
"For the past two days there was some kind of weird odour which was coming out of this area. I thought it must be because of the dirty gutter but since they have found body parts of a girl, this could be the reason for the foul smell," said Vicky, a local resident. The police have sealed the spot and investigation is still going on to find the missing head. "Police is trying to identify the body," said PRO of Delhi police Rajan Bhagat.

Dangerous territory
Several high-profile cases of murder have been reported from the Vasant Vihar area in the recent past:
>> A 25-year old television journalist was shot dead in her car on her way home after a late night shift in Sept 2008. Vasant Kunj-resident Soumya Vishwanathan was working with Headlines Today as a producer. Police said they got a call from an autorickshaw driver about the incident at 3:41 am. Her Maruti Zen had hit the divider of the road. The front wheel on the right side was punctured. The windowpane was shattered. Initially it looked like an accident. But the investigation took a turn when a piece of her scalp and hair were found on the back seat. Vishwanathan was rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre where she was declared brought dead and the post-mortem revealed that a bullet was lodged below her right earlobe. four people were arrested later.
>>u00a0Twenty-year-old Shobit Modi, a second year information technology student from Manav Rachna University in Faridabad and alumni of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, was stabbed to death near his residence at Vasant Kunj's C-block on May 5. Shobit had four stab wounds, one on the chest, one in the abdomen and two in the back. He was taken to hospital by his father, where doctors pronounced him dead. The case is yet to be solved.
>> In June 2011, a DDA contractor - a former swimming coach, who in his youth was a practice partner of ace swimmer Khajan Singh Tokas - was also shot dead in cold blood. Vasant
Vihar police later arrested the three men who carried out the murder.

(With inputs from Atul Krishan)