At first, there was little for investigators to work with. A red trolley suitcase abandoned in an unreserved railway compartment contained a woman’s dismembered and decomposing body. The suitcase had traveled hundreds of kilometers before anyone discovered its contents.
By the end of August, this suitcase had led investigators from a railway platform in Agra through hundreds of CCTV recordings to suburban trains and an autorickshaw in Chennai, and eventually more than 2,000 kilometers away to Manipur, where police arrested a young couple in their early twenties suspected of killing the woman.
The victim was identified as Hayathun Nisha, 38, an Odisha native who had been living in Guduvanchery, south of Chennai, and working at a private firm. Police suspect she was killed by Manik Uddin Laskar, 22, after a relationship between them deteriorated over her demand that he marry her, according to a senior officer familiar with his interrogation.
Laskar and his wife, Bhagabati Majhi, were arrested in Kashimpur in Manipur’s Jiribam district on Saturday.
Investigation Timeline
The investigation began on August 5, when passengers aboard the Tamil Nadu Express noticed a foul smell coming from a seemingly abandoned red suitcase in a general compartment after the train reached Agra. Government Railway Police officers opened it and found the headless, dismembered remains of a woman. There was no immediate way to identify either the woman or whoever had placed the suitcase aboard the train.
Investigators turned to the journey the luggage had made. Working with Tamil Nadu police, the Agra Railway Police, Chennai Government Railway Police, and the Railway Protection Force, they began examining CCTV recordings from Chennai Central. They scrutinized hundreds of recordings—more than 350—and found images of a man and a woman carrying what appeared to be the same red trolley suitcase through the station and onto the Tamil Nadu Express.
