Jamshedpur, March 4: There has been no breakthrough for the second consecutive day today in the sensational murder of a 32-year-old Nepali woman, Dhan Kumari.

She was travelling to Orissa on the superfast New Delhi-Puri Purushottam Express on March 1 to be by the side of her ailing husband in Orissa. But her dead body was recovered from a spot near Chakulia and the post-mortem revealed that she was raped before being strangulated.

Police, however, suspect the involvement of her brother-in-law, Chhab Bahadur, who was travelling with her. He had claimed that miscreants had forced both of them to jump out of the train when it was moving at a snail’s pace because of on-going repair on the tracks.

But investigating officers refuse to believe the version. “Had strangers raped her, there would have been no reason for them to kill the woman and then hang her from a tree with the sari she was wearing,” said an investigating officer.

Chhab Bahadur’s involvement would also explain why the policemen escorting the train saw nothing unusual when the train slowed down. Also why no complaint was lodged by any passenger when the train reached Kharagpur.

Sub-inspector Ramesh Kumar Singh, who was leading the police escort, claimed they were extra vigilant when the train had slowed down. Superintendent of railway police A. Natarajan has ordered a parallel inquiry and promised action against policemen if charges of dereliction of duty were established against them. While an FIR has been lodged in the Chakulia police station, the railway police, he said, still had no official information about the case.

The couple had boarded a general compartment at Mughalsarai. They had a waitlisted ticket and moved to the S-5 coach at Tatanagar following assurance from the TTE that two berths would be allotted to them. They were not allotted the berths, however, and the two of them had occupied the space outside the toilet.

The woman sat on the floor while her brother-in-law was seated on a crate nearby, claimed the police.

The train reached Chakulia around 10.30 pm, an hour’s journey from Tatanagar. What happened thereafter continues to be shrouded in mystery.

Chhab Bahadur continues to be interrogated even as the police, led by Ghatsila DSP Shailendra Kumar Srivastava, intensified their search for clues.