Woman’s body stored in fridge: Key suspect identified and will arrest him soon, says Bengaluru police Commissioner B Dayananda

Meanwhile, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara said the police have already collected the details of the crime and that he would not be able to share them. “We are confident of nabbing the accused soon. We need to see if there was one person or two persons involved in the incident. We don’t know about it as we speak,” he added.

The police discovered the body of Mahalakshmi, who worked as a team leader with a costume outlet in Malleshwaram and lived alone, at her rented house in Vinayaka Nagar in Vyalikaval on Saturday. The police filed the case based on the complaint filed by Mahalakshmi’s mother Meena Rana.

A police officer, who is part of the investigation, said Mahalakshmi’s body was handed over to the family after the postmortem examination.

“During the course of the investigation, we also found Mahalakshmi had separated from her husband Hemant Das and that the couple had domestic disputes,” said the officer.

A police officer from the Nelamangala police station said Mahalakshmi filed a complaint against Hemant Das in February claiming that he had assaulted her. Meanwhile, Das also filed a complaint against her, saying she was having an affair with another man. The police had taken a Non-Cognisable Report (NCR) and their family members had tried to defuse the fight between the couple.

On Sunday, Das said he married Mahalakshmi six years ago and had a daughter. Das also alleged Mahalakshmi was having an affair with a barber from Uttarakhand. “They both had an extra-marital affair which led to the problem and I discovered it somewhere in April-May last year. For the last nine months, we were separated and I do not know whether she was in contact with the man. When she separated, he was also told not to meet her but I did not know if he met her. For the first four months, my daughter stayed with her (Mahalakshmi) and later she lived with me in Nelamangala,” he said.

Das also said she visited Nelamangala a month ago and met their daughter. “She was calm and did not talk much about her life,” he added.

One of Mahalakshmi’s brothers said, “I visited her in July and stayed here with her for a few days in another house. After I and I shifted, she took the house for rent and started living there,” he added.

The brother also said they had planned to meet on August 15 as they wanted to celebrate Independence Day. He said Mahalakshmi became incommunicado on September 4.

The Bengaluru police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 103 (1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in the murder case.