BHUBANESWAR: Three months after being unable to make any headway, police have finally been able to crack the murder case of a 30-year-old woman Sneha Behera with the arrest of her boyfriend Chandan Parida (27) on Thursday.
As per police, Sneha’s sister Banita of Kandhamal had lodged a complaint with Khandagiri police alleging the former had been missing since January 10. Sneha worked with a private firm and stayed on rent in Behera Sahi here.
After registering a missing report, the cops attempted to trace Sneha by using her mobile phone number but her last location was found near her rented accommodation. Eventually, with lack of substantial clues, police had to halt the investigation.
However, a few days later on January 28, Dhauli police recovered the decomposed body of a woman from Daya riverbed. The victim’s postmortem report suggested she was strangulated to death. Khandagiri police tried to connect the dots and suspected the unidentified woman could be Sneha. However, as the body was severely decomposed, the family could not identify it. Police then examined Sneha’s mobile phone IMEI number to find out if she used another number too.
During the course of investigation, police found Sneha used a second phone number. As the call records were examined, the cops noticed she frequently contacted Chandan. Police established Chandan’s last location in Dhauli on January 10 where the unidentified woman’s body was recovered.
They zeroed in on Chandan and nabbed him, following which he confessed to the crime and revealed the unidentified woman was Sneha. “Chandan suspected the victim had an illicit affair. The duo met in Dhauli area and had a heated exchange over the matter. He then assaulted and strangulated her to death. He disposed of the body in Daya riverbed before fleeing,” said police commissioner, S Dev Datta Singh.
Police said Chandan too, worked as a security guard here. The duo had come in contact with each other through Facebook last year and had entered into a relationship. They had frequent fights as the accused suspected she was cheating on him.