Dehradun, March 19 Uttarakhand Police on Thursday arrested the husband of a woman, whose body was found inside a bag in a forest in Dehradun, about a week ago, police said.
The police identified the deceased as Rupa, a resident of Bihar, and after an extensive investigation, arrested her husband, who was living with another woman and his 11-month-old daughter, they said.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Pramendra Singh Dobal said that the accused, Ranjit Sharma, 32, a resident of the Saharsa district in Bihar, was arrested on charges of murder.
He had been working as a daily wage labourer in Dehradun for the past 12 years.
The SSP said that on March 11, the body of a woman aged between 30 and 32 was discovered inside a white plastic bag in the forest near the Premnagar area.
Prima facie, it was evident that the woman had been murdered elsewhere, with her body dumped at that location, he said, adding that due to decomposition, the body could not be identified initially.
Subsequently, a case was registered against unknown persons at the Premnagar police station under Sections 103(1) and 238 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
A post-mortem conducted by a panel of doctors confirmed that the woman had been murdered by strangulation.
Dobal further revealed that during the investigation -- which was guided by the deceased woman's attire -- it came to light that a woman who had been living with Ranjit Sharma, a resident of the Koswali Kothri area, had gone missing a few days prior.
Meanwhile, her 11-month-old infant daughter was found to be in the custody of the accused and another woman living with him.
According to the official, the investigation into the case revealed that Sharma has two wives.
On March 8, he had taken a motorcycle and Rs 1,500 under the pretext of sending his first wife and their child to Bihar.
The official said that the following day, while returning the motorcycle, Sharma claimed that his first wife had already departed for Bihar.
Acting on suspicion, the police took the accused into custody for questioning, where he confessed to his crime and revealed that Rupa was his first wife.
She had left him several years earlier but returned in February and began pressuring him to leave his second wife -- a situation that had led to an ongoing dispute between the two.
According to the police, driven to desperation by this dispute, the accused strangled Rupa to death on March 8, stuffed her body into a bag, and dumped it near the Bala Sundari Temple.
The official announced that a reward of Rs 2,500 has been declared for the police team that cracked the case, along with an additional reward of Rs 5,000 from the Inspector General of Police, Garhwal Range.