GUWAHATI: Four persons, including a woman, have been arrested in Assam's Jorhat district for allegedly beheading a 31-year-old neighbour over an illicit affair with the woman arrested in the case, officials said on Thursday, September 17.
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The deceased, identified as Anil Rajgarh, went missing on September 7. His family members lodged a complaint at Mariani Police Station on September 10, police said, adding that the beheaded body was found near the Bhogdoi river, a few kilometres from the place of occurrence.
"The body was buried near the river and the head was packed in a plastic bag. The person was beheaded with a machete and before that his throat was slit with a blade," said an investigating officer.
The accused have been identified as Kapil Karmakar (32), his wife Anima Karmakar, younger brother Sanjit Karmakar (30) and friend Mahesh Rajgarh (33). All are residents of Greenview Tea Estate in Mariani.
They have been arrested under sections 103 (1) (murder), 61 (criminal conspiracy) and 238 (disappearance of evidence) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS).
According to the Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Mariani, Trinayan Chamuah, Anil Rajgarh was in contact with Anima for the last few months and on September 7 she asked him to meet her in a tea garden area, but after he reached, she attacked him with a blade to cut his throat.
"First she attacked him and immediately her husband and two others joined. They beheaded him, put the body in a sack and dragged it to the riverside where it was buried," Chamuah said, adding that the accused have confessed to the crime.
He said that the accused did not run away after killing Anil, rather they behaved like just common neighbours. "When we recovered the body, they were roaming around with other locals, so nobody suspected them," he said.
According to the SDPO, police found that Anil was constantly talking to Anima over the phone and it looked unusual, which subsequently led to the arrests and confession.
"Both Anil and Anima had their own families but their contacts over phone were unusual. When we questioned Anima about it, she revealed that Anil was forcing her to get into an illicit affair, which according to her, was the reason she planned the murder," the SDPO added.
She told the police that on September 7 she asked him to meet at the tea garden where her husband and the other two men were already hiding. After burying the body, they hid the machete at their home, which was later recovered.
Anil's body was almost decomposed and it was later sent to Mariani Civil Hospital for postmortem, and the accused were produced before the court on Wednesday. The court sent them to three-day police remand.