Man kills ‘live-in partner’ in Surat, arrested on Delhi-Faridabad train

A murder case was registered against an unidentified person and a postmortem was conducted by a team which revealed that the woman was strangled to death. Surat rural police subsequently formed ten teams to identify the deceased and trace the accused.

Investigations later identified the victim as one Kajaldevi, who was allegedly married to Akhilesh Mukhiya, a resident of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, four years back. After a discord between the two, Kajaldevi moved to Delhi with their son.

A year ago, Kajaldevi reportedly met Ravikumar through social media. Ravikumar used to work in a private hotel back then, the police said. Their friendship turned into a relationship and the duo reportedly started living together.

When Kajaldevi started pressuring him to marry, Ravikumar “moved to Surat, blocked her number, and took up work at a textile factory”. She later traced him to Surat “with the help of his friends,” and eventually “moved in with him again”.

Surat district Superintendent of Police Rajesh Gadhiya said, “Ravikumar and Kajaldevi were living together in a room at the Tarsadi village for the last two and a half months. One of our teams visited the building where the couple lived and found both missing.”

“Kajal frequently quarreled with him over his friendships with other women on social media and also pressured him to marry her. A disagreement on the same issue erupted between them on November 2. Fed up and harassed by it, the accused strangled her to death while her two-year-old son was playing outside the house,” SP Gadhiya said.

Gadhiya added, “After the murder, Ravikumar took Kajaldevi’s son to a friend’s house, saying he and Kajaldevi were going shopping. He then bought a travel bag from a market near Kosamba railway station, packed the body inside, and dumped it near a railway over bridge. Later, he took the child and boarded a train to Delhi. When we tracked his phone, we found his location in Delhi and later discovered he had boarded the Delhi-Faridabad train.”

Acting on a tip-off, a team of Surat police, along with Faridabad police and Railway GRP officials, initially detained Sharma. According to latest reports, Sharma has been placed under a two-day transit remand and is being brought to Surat.

The child is presently in the custody of the police, who have contacted the victim’s parents, and are bringing the child back to Surat.