Patna, Aug. 6: The wife of a retired chief engineer of the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) was found murdered at her home in Kankerbagh today, sending shockwaves through a city that has seen a spate of killings and raising fresh questions about security of its residents.
Krishna Sinha, 50, the wife of Shyam Nandan Prasad, was found dead in a bathroom on the first floor of the two-storied house (A-21) at PC Colony of Kankerbagh.
Shyam Nandan, 68, who was posted in Bhagalpur as the chief engineer of BSEB, stayed in the house with his wife, daughter Kavita and grand-daughter Aditi, a student of St Joseph’s Convent. Kavita’s husband works outside Patna. Shyam Nandan’s two sons live in Delhi.
Police said that around 1pm, Shyam Nandan and Kavita, who works with an NGO in the city, went to visit a doctor for a check-up.
“Krishna Sinha was alone in the house. Around 2pm, her husband and daughter returned and knocked several times, but didn’t get any response. They requested a neighbour to climb up the walls to the first floor. After around half-an-hour, the neighbour managed to enter the house and unlock the main door,” a police officer, who didn’t want to be named, told The Telegraph.
“They searched the house and discovered the body of Krishna in a washroom located on the first floor. Her head had been dunked in a bucket of water. Though a post-mortem needs to be conducted, it seems that she was hit on the back of the head with a heavy or sharp object. She appears to have died instantly,” the officer added.
Another officer said the police had found a knife inside a bag in the drawing room on the ground floor. “The bag, according to the family, does not belong to them. It has been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). A team from FSL, as well as the dog squad, was called in to hunt for evidence. At this moment, any statement from the police will be premature but this looks to be the work of someone known to the victim,” this officer said.
Police said the house has a thick foliage around it which may have ensured that the killers sneaked in without being noticed.
Of late, Patna has been rocked by a series of murders that have raised questions about policing. At least six residents of the city have been murdered in the past two months. Only in two cases have the police managed to nab the culprits. For example, the killers of nursery school principal Neelam Sharma are still at large. In the case of lawyer Sangeeta Sinha, police are yet to decide if she was murdered or committed suicide.
