In Gujarat, case of a dismembered body is cracked using three tattooed dots

A case of murder has been lodged against the victim’s “close friend”, identified as Shailendra Chauhan, who hails from Bijnor and has known Sachin for over 15 years, since before the duo moved to Gujarat for better prospects, police said.

Inspector V R Bharwad of Bharuch C Division told The Indian Express, “The victim’s brother, who arrived from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, identified the body as being of Sachin Chauhan (35), an employee of a Dahej-based pharma company. His right arm, which had been recovered in a plastic bag on Sunday, had a tattoo of his name with three dots in the design. The accused tried to cut the flesh to remove the tattoo but the dots gave away his identity… They matched old photographs of the tattoo.”

Based on his brother’s complaint as well as “circumstantial clues” that Sachin was last known to be at the residence of the accused on the night of March 24, the Bharuch C Division police lodged an FIR for murder against Chauhan.

It was on March 28 that Sachin’s brother arrived in Bharuch and filed a missing persons’ complaint after meeting Shailendra, who claimed that Sachin had gone to Bangalore with his senior for official work.

Bharwad said, “The victim had gone missing since the night of March 24 — his last phone call that lasted 24 minutes was made to his wife in UP at around 8.15 pm, in which he informed her that he was at Shailendra’s apartment. From March 24 onwards, Sachin’s family received purported text messages from his phone in which he admitted to committing a murder and informed his family that he had left Bharuch. In reality, it was Shailendra who has allegedly been using Sachin’s phone to text his family.”

The officer said that following the registration of the FIR, the police conducted a search of Shailendra’s apartment late Monday night and discovered that he had not only allegedly killed Sachin and dismembered the body, but wanted to make it appear as if Sachin had disappeared after committing a murder of a man whom he owed money to. “However, his brother was aware that Shailendra had taken a loan of Rs 2 lakh from Sachin and still owed him about Rs 1.6 lakh. Therefore, he immediately suspected Shailendra’s involvement in the case,” Bharwad said.

At Shailendra’s residence, police allegedly found multiple traces of blood on the walls, the bathroom and under the bed. Bharwad said, “At every step, the accused tried his best to cover his tracks. To camouflage the blood stains on the walls, he splashed Holi colours.

However, there were visible blood spots under the bed that had not been cleaned. There were also a lot of bloodstains in the bathroom, where he may have dismembered the body. We also suspect that he may have used some electric cutter used to cut stones and tiles to dismember the body parts as they have been cut with precision. He also disposed of the body parts without the clothes to prevent identification through outfits.. We have launched a hunt for Shailendra.”

Bharwad said that one of the text messages sent by Shailendra through Sachin’s phone “said that he broke a glass bottle on the head of the man before killing him as the man made an indecent remark about his wife, asking Sachin to hand her over in lieu of the debt money”.

“We have gathered detailed forensic evidence from the scene of crime, and the body parts have been sent for forensic post-mortem as they cannot be sent for regular post-mortem,” he said.

Bharwad said that Sachin’s family’s suspicions were cemented when Shailendra left Bharuch on March 29, stating that he had to attend a close relatives’ funeral at his native place, just before the head was discovered.

Sachin is survived by his wife and a four-year-old son in Bijnor, police said.