Jamshedpur: A 29-year-old woman was murdered on Friday night by her suitor, who packed her body in a trolley bag, dumped it near Tatanagar station using her scooter and then returned to the hotel where he was staying to confess his crime to police over telephone Saturday morning.
Officer in-charge of Bagbera police station said Chaunika Kumari, who worked at Meditrina Hospitalas operations manager at Adityapur near hear, was murdered by Mirza Rafique Haque (32), who has been arrested.
"The two had an affair. Mirza, a former resident medical officer at Calcutta's B.M. Birla Heart Research Centre, murdered the girl as she refused to marry him. He strangulated her with a chain at Ginger Hotel at Bistupur. We have taken him in custody," OC Ram Yash Prasad told The Telegraph.
According to accounts by her father and police, Chaunika was last seen by her family on Friday morning, the day after her maternal grandmother had died. After that she left, the family presuming she was going to work as usual since she was carrying her lunch box.
But when she did not return by 6.30pm, her father Arun Kumar panicked. They called Meditrina where, to their surprise, the hospital director told them she had taken leave for three days, Wednesday, November 1 to Friday, November 3. "Chaunika was supposed to join duty from today (Saturday). She had asked for leave saying that one of her cousins was supposed to go to Australia from Calcutta and she would go there to see her off," director Amitabh Chatterjee said, repeating what he told the family.
Chaunika's aunt Gita Bose, however, told this reporter that the cousin she referred to, Sukanya Bose, had already left for Australia on October 28. Clearly, Chaunika had been holding back from her family.
Sensing that her father was distraught, Chatterjee and some of his colleagues then went to their house at 7.30pm to try and console them.
"We went over to their house at Kadma. We returned to the hospital at 8.15pm along with her parents to try and see if we could find any clues. We searched her drawer and locker. In the locker, we found a courier company cover that had Mirza's name and number," said Chatterjee.
Chatterjee said he asked a colleague, Rakesh Namta, to call the number on the cover. "No one responded. At 9pm, we received a call from that number. The caller identified himself as Mirza, but said he had no idea where Chaunika could be. Chaunika's parents then left the hospital.
While this was going on, unbeknownst to the family and her Meditrina colleagues, the police found the abandoned trolley bag near an eatery close to Kitadih Station Road near Tatanagar station at 11pm, but did not open it, fearing it could be containing explosives. Ultimately, the police opened the bag at 3am on Saturday and discovered her body.
"On searching the victim's clothes, we found a Meditrina Hospital ID and her ATM card. Then, we informed Meditrina Hospital," said OC Prasad.
On Saturday morning, Chatterjee and Rakesh went to Bagbera police station where Chaunika's father was present. "There, at 9.30am Mirza called Rakesh again and confessed to murdering Chaunika," Chatterjee said, adding that Mirza also revealed he was in room 201 on the second floor of Hotel Ginger at Bistupur.
A police team then arrested him from the hotel.
According to a hotel staffer, Mirza had checked in on October 30. But no one could say how or when he managed to take out the body in the trolley bag.
Chaunika's father Arun was inconsolable. He said she was very religious and since Friday was purnima she was only carrying fruits in her lunch box.
