The body of a 25-year-old traffic police constable, who had gone missing on September 6, was found buried in a jungle in Odisha's Keonjhar district, and the police arrested her husband, who is also a constable, for murdering her, a senior officer said on Wednesday.
Deceased Subhamitra Sahoo, a native of Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district and posted in Bhubaneswar, disappeared after leaving home for duty on September 6, police said.
Sahoo's mother lodged a missing person’s report at the Capital police station here the next day.
On the basis of the complaint, the police registered a case and launched an investigation.
During the probe, the police found that Sahoo had secretly solemnised a court marriage with a man named Deepak Rout in July 2024, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissioner S Dev Datta Singh said.
Rout, also a police constable, became the prime suspect as Sahoo was last seen with him in Bhubaneswar, Singh said.
The husband was picked up and during interrogation, he admitted that he picked up Sahoo from her workplace in his car on September 6 and strangulated her to death between 2 and 3 PM here, the police commissioner said.
He later buried her body in a jungle in Ghatagaon area in Keonjhar district, around 170 km from Bhubaneswar, Singh said.
Rout killed Sahoo probably because of financial disputes between them, he stated.
Singh said Rout had reportedly taken around Rs 10 lakh from Sahoo and she had been demanding the money back to organise a social ceremony to formally announce their marriage, the commissioner added.
Rout was arrested, and a murder case was registered at Capital police station.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in Odisha Assembly, Naveen Patnaik, slammed the BJP government over the murder of the female constable, who was missing for 10 days.
In an X post, Patnaik said, “The news of Shubhamitra’s death has left me heartbroken. This incident raises serious questions about the efficiency and capability of the Home Department and the state police.” If the police department cannot locate one of its own female employees for 10 days, one can easily imagine the plight of ordinary citizens in the state, the former chief minister said.
If the Home Department and the police do not immediately bring changes to their working style for women’s safety, families will lose their daughters like Sahoo in the future, Patnaik wrote.
State Congress president Bhakta Charan Das also raised questions on the functioning of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, who is in charge of the Home Department, and the Commissionerate of Police.
“Though the Congress MLAs have been raising the crime against women issue in the state Assembly several times, we cannot see any seriousness from the government in the matter,” Das said.
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