A ‘forgotten’ steel trunk, grisly discovery: Inside the Lucknow train murder mystery
Woman’s body found in a trunk on a train at Lucknow’s Gomtinagar station prompts police investigation as authorities work to identify the victim.
Police have registered a case and launched an investigation after a woman’s body was discovered inside a trunk in a sleeper coach of a train at Lucknow’s Gomtinagar station, with efforts underway to identify the victim. (ANI screengrab) In a chilling discovery, railway staff at Gomtinagar station in Lucknow have found a woman’s headless torso and limbs in a sleeper coach on a train that arrived at the station after originating at Chhapra in Bihar.
The body parts, police have said, appear to be of a woman in the 25-30 year age group. Police have registered a case and are trying to identify her.
The shocking discovery was made on the Chhapra-Gomti Nagar Express that travels from Bihar to Lucknow via Gorakhpur. Once passengers had deboarded the train, the railway staff started a routine check of the compartments. They found a trunk and a bag near a washroom in one of the sleeper coaches.
Railways SP Rohit Mishra said, “The railway staff informed the stationmaster, and the railway police were also alerted. We reached the spot. When the box and the bag were opened, a woman’s headless torso was found. It had been packed in a polythene bag and put into the box.”
“In the bag, we found the arms and legs of the woman, also packed in polythene. The woman’s age is estimated to be between 25 and 30 years. We have not been able to identify her yet because the head is missing. An FIR has been registered, and we are trying to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
Police said clothes were recovered from the trunk and the bag, but they have not provided any clues about the woman’s identity.
“We have formed three teams and one of them has gone to Bihar to investigate this case,” said Mishra.
The body has been sent for autopsy. Police suspect that the woman’s body parts were put aboard the train at one of the stations where it halted during its journey to Lucknow. The train takes nearly 12 hours to make the journey and has 20 scheduled stops.
Police plan to scan CCTV footage from the stations in an attempt to identify the people who loaded the trunk and the bag onto the train.
Police said the woman’s legs, severed below the knees, and her hands, cut below the elbows, had been packed in polythene bags. These were then neatly arranged inside a cotton bag. Officials noted there were no visible bloodstains on the bag, suggesting deliberate efforts to carefully pack and conceal the remains. Clothes had been placed over the polythene bags, seemingly to disguise the contents and prevent detection by passengers or railway staff.
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