Chennai: Odisha woman murder investigation that began with a missing-person complaint in Guduvanchery and later took police to a railway station in Agra has now led investigators to Manipur.
Tamil Nadu Police, with the help of Manipur Police, arrested 22-year-old Manik Uddin Laskar and his wife, 21-year-old Bhagabati Majhi, in Jiribam district on Saturday. The couple are suspected of being involved in the murder of 38-year-old Hayathun Nisha, a native of Odisha who was living in Guduvanchery near Chennai.
The case first came to light on August 5, when passengers on the Tamil Nadu Express noticed a strong smell coming from a red trolley suitcase after the train reached Agra Cantt station.
Railway police opened the suitcase and found the remains of an unidentified woman.
At that point, investigators did not know who the woman was or where the crime had taken place.
The investigation then moved towards Chennai.
Police examined more than 350 surveillance videos from Chennai Central Railway Station. The footage showed a man and a woman carrying the suitcase through the station, according to Tamil Nadu Police.
Investigators followed those movements and traced the couple to a rented house on Mosque Street in Guduvanchery.
A search of the house led police to recover additional human remains. Forensic examination and DNA analysis later identified the victim as Hayathun Nisha, police said.
Nisha’s son had already approached Guduvanchery police after she went missing and filed a missing-person complaint.
With the identification of the body and the recovery of further remains, the case was converted into a murder investigation.
Police then began looking for Laskar and Majhi.
By then, the couple had left Tamil Nadu.
Special teams were formed to trace them, and the search eventually moved beyond the state. After nearly four weeks, police located the couple at Kashimpur in Jiribam district of Manipur.
A joint team of Tamil Nadu and Manipur Police carried out the arrests. A Manipur Police official said the arrested couple would be handed over to the Station House Officer of Guduvanchery Police Station. They are expected to be produced before a local magistrate before being taken to Tamil Nadu on a transit warrant.
The police investigation is now moving into its next stage.
Investigators want to establish exactly what happened to Nisha, the individual roles of the two suspects, how the remains were transported to Chennai Central and then placed on the Tamil Nadu Express, and what led to the killing.
Police have not yet established the motive publicly.
Some reports have cited an alleged relationship between Nisha and Laskar as a possible line of investigation. Police have said the exact motive and sequence of events will become clearer after the suspects are brought to Chennai and questioned.
For Nisha’s family, the case has taken a long and difficult route.
A missing-person complaint in Guduvanchery eventually became a murder investigation spanning several states. The discovery on a train in Agra connected the case to Chennai, while CCTV footage helped investigators identify the people they were looking for.
The arrests in Manipur now give investigators an opportunity to piece together what happened before the body was taken to the railway station.
The case also shows how a crime reported in one place can quickly become a multi-state investigation. Railway records, CCTV footage, forensic evidence and cooperation between state police forces all played a role in tracing the suspects.
For now, the focus is on bringing the arrested couple back to Tamil Nadu and questioning them.
The motive remains to be established, and investigators will have to determine the individual roles of both suspects before the full picture of Nisha’s death becomes clear.
What began on August 5 with an unidentified body inside a suitcase on a train has now reached a significant stage with two arrests.
The investigation, however, is not over.
