Assam youth suspected in woman’s murder in Tamil Nadu arrested in Manipur

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The Tambaram City Police have arrested a 22-year-old Assam native in Manipur in connection with the murder of a 38-year-old woman in Guduvanchery, whose decomposed and dismembered body parts were found stuffed inside a trolley bag aboard the Chennai-New Delhi Tamil Nadu Express at Agra earlier this month.

The accused, M. Manik Uddin Laskar, from Dakshin Krishnapur, Sonabarighat, in Assam’s Cachar district, was arrested at Kashimpur in Jiribam district of Manipur, the police said. He will be brought to Tambaram after the police obtain a transit warrant.

The murder came to light on August 5, when the decomposed human remains, with the head missing, were found inside a red trolley bag in the rear general compartment of the Tamil Nadu Express at Agra railway station around 5 a.m. The Agra Railway Police registered a case and launched an investigation.

Following communication with the Agra Railway Police, the Government Railway Police (GRP) at Chennai Central and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) examined CCTV footage from Platform 4, from where the Tamil Nadu Express had originated. The footage showed a man and a woman carrying a suspicious trolley bag and boarding the train, which had departed Chennai Central for Delhi around 10 p.m. on August 3.

The police subsequently examined several CCTV recordings and traced the movements of a couple carrying bags of similar colour . Their movements led investigators to Guduvanchery, where they identified a rented house on Masuthi Street in which the couple had allegedly been staying along with another woman.

The deceased was later identified as Hayathun Nisha, 38, wife of Jahhur Khan and a native of Jagatsinghpur in Odisha. She had been staying in Guduvanchery and working at a private firm.

The police found that the couple — Manik Uddin Laskar of Assam and Bhagabati Majhi of Odisha — had gone missing from the house. During the investigation, the police also recovered body parts from a cooking vessel on the premises, strengthening their suspicion against the two.

The Guduvanchery police subsequently launched a hunt for the suspects. Tambaram City Police Commissioner Prem Anand Sinha formed a special team and monitored the investigation.

A senior police officer said the special team travelled to a remote and difficult-to-access area of Manipur in search of Laskar. The team stayed in the area for more than a week and tracked his movements before locating him.

“The area was remote, we could not move around much during the day, and it was also raining there. The team camped for more than a week and eventually traced the accused,” the officer said.

The police said the exact motive for the murder would be established only after Laskar is brought to Tambaram and questioned. Bhagabati Majhi, the other suspected accused, remains absconding, and efforts are under way to trace her.

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