Man held for killing live-in-partner in Maharashtra’s Naigaon, dumping body in Gujarat with wife’s help

Preliminary investigation has revealed that Naina was forcing Shukla to marry her and had also filed a criminal case against him when he refused to do so, the police said. Shukla allegedly asked her to withdraw the case and killed her when she refused.

Shukla and his wife were arrested early on Tuesday.

In her statement to the police, Jaya, who also works as a hairdresser in the film industry, said that Naina stayed in Naigaon (East). On August 12, Jaya said she got a call from make-up man Pramod Saha asking her if Naina was with her as her phone was unreachable. When Jaya dialled her number, she found it switched off. She also did not see any updates on Naina’s social media accounts. On August 14, Naina filed a missing person’s complaint with the Naigaon police.

Sources said that Naina and Shukla had a live-in relationship and stayed together in a rented room in Naigaon.

As per Jaya’s statement, Naina had filed two criminal complaints against Shukla at Virar police station and Waliv police station in 2019. “One day, in front of me, Shukla had threatened my sister to withdraw the criminal case against him saying or else he would kill her. Naina was very scared after this and that was the reason she had stayed with me for an entire month in July this year,” Jaya stated before the police.

Since Naina was missing and had not contacted any relatives or friends for a few days, the Naigaon police started investigating the matter.

“Acting on the complaint, we started the investigation and after going through the CCTV at Naina’s society, we found that on August 9, Shukla had visited the society, and left the place with a suitcase. Based on this suspicion, we detained Shukla. During sustained interrogation, he admitted to his crime,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Zone-2 Pournima Chougule Shringi of Mira-Bhayandar Vasai Virar police said.

“As Naina was forcing him to marry her, he allegedly killed her at her place on August 9. He then stuffed her body in a suitcase and with the help of his wife took the suitcase in a two-wheeler to Vapi, Gujarat and dumped the body there. He showed us the place where he dumped the body. We checked with the local police who had found a body on August 13 in a semi-decomposed state. As per the rules, they had cremated the body after duly securing a sample for DNA examination,” said DCP Shringi.