Bhubaneswar, June 24: Police are on the look out for the gardener of retired army doctor Somnath Parida accused of murdering his wife and slicing her body for disposal.

The gardener, Sonu Minz, who hails from Sundergarh, is expected to provide clues, as he was the only person the septuagenarian doctor interacted with.

“Minz’s mobile phone is switched off. We have come to know that at times, he used to stay in the quarters behind the doctor’s house,” said a police officer. He said they were also looking for the maid, who used to visit the couple’s house when Parida’s deceased wife Ushashree was at home.

“After June 3, Parida asked her not to come. We expect she might give information about the couple’s relationship,” he said.

The police today also recorded the statement of Parida’s son Lalit, who arrived in the city yesterday from Abu Dhabi. Lalit told the police that he had spoken to his father over phone on the day of the murder, but had no clue about what had happened.

Parida allegedly killed his wife Ushashree, 60, on June 3 and sliced her body into pieces, stashing them in two iron chests and trying to preserve them with Nimyle - a herbal floor cleaner. The doctor kept cutting the body parts on every day with a saw and butcher’s knife. He told the police that he had purchased most of the cutting equipment from Unit-I market.

“My father did not let me talk to my mother and sought to fob me off with excuses. I even spoke to my father a day before the incident came to light. The next day I got a call from my uncle informing me about the murder,” said Lalit, who is a doctor.

He told the police that his parents used to share a normal relationship though they occasionally quarrelled like any other couple. “He reached the city last night and directly came to the police station. We will quiz him more,” said an officer.

Lalit broke down while talking to reporters. “My mother is dead and my father is in jail. Our family is shattered after this incident. I am deeply shocked,” he said. In the afternoon, he along with the members of his uncle’s family went to Cuttack to perform Ushashree’s last rites.

Deputy commissioner of police Nitinjeet Singh said they were waiting for the couple’s daughter to reach the city. “It was she who had alerted her uncle after getting suspicious when her father did not allow her to speak to her mother. We have also come to know that the couple were quarrelling over her visits to the house. We hope she can give us some vital information that will lead us to the motive behind the murder,” said Singh.

He said it appeared to be a pre-planned murder given the fact that the doctor was planning to dispose of the body. “We may bring him on remand and conduct a lie detector test on him,” he said.

A forensic officer, who visited the crime scene on Saturday, recalled the doctor telling the police that he relived the sweet memories of their marital life on the night of the murder. The next day he started chopping off his wife’s body parts in a bid to dispose them off.

“Though he has tried to destroy it all, the victim’s head was more or less intact. It will give us some idea of the way she was murdered,” he said.

Parida’s brother-in-law Ranjan Samal told reporters that no lawyer had come forward to move the bail application of the accused doctor after coming to know about the gruesome nature of the crime.