Bengaluru man strangled wife, spent 3 days with body before dumping it

The murder came to light when skeletal remains were found during a cleanliness drive at the vacant site.

BENGALURU: A 32-year-old man allegedly strangled his wife to death following a quarrel and spent three days in their house with her body before dumping it at a vacant site in north Bengaluru, police said.Sagar Chandra Ravath allegedly wrapped his wife’s body in a bed and tied a rope around it before carrying it to the site in Sampigehalli’s MS Nagar at midnight on the fourth day.Police later identified the woman as Anusuya Behra, 28, and arrested Ravath.The murder came to light when skeletal remains were found during a cleanliness drive at the vacant site. The remains were beyond recognition, leaving investigators with only a few clues, including soiled clothes, a clothing tag, bangles and a small Ganesha pendant.Clothing tag, Ganesha pendant help identify victimPolice first traced the clothing tag to a hypermarket where the garment had been purchased.Investigators obtained a contact number recorded during the purchase, but could not make headway as one digit in the number had been recorded incorrectly.They then turned to the Ganesha pendant.Their inquiries indicated that such pendants were commonly worn in parts of Odisha.Police collected details of people from Odisha living within a 1.5-km radius of the site and identified eight women in the area.Most responded to police calls, but there was no response from one number belonging to Anusuya.Investigators then used tower-dump data to trace another number linked to her. When they called it, Ravath answered.How police traced the husbandWhen police visited the couple’s house in Agrahara Layout, Ravath claimed Anusuya had gone missing and said he planned to travel to his hometown to look for her.Investigators noticed that he had been using Anusuya’s SIM card on his phone and answering calls from her friends. Inquiries at the hotel where the couple worked also revealed that they frequently quarrelled.The hotel owner told police that Anusuya had fought with Ravath over her salary on August 11. The owner of their rented house also confirmed their frequent quarrels and said Ravath had vacated the house a few days earlier.These findings led police to take Ravath into custody. During questioning, he allegedly confessed to strangling Anusuya and dumping her body at the vacant site.A police officer said the cleanliness drive provided the starting point for the investigation.DCP (North-East) GK Mithun Kumar said the case was cracked through a combination of a clothing tag, phone numbers, technical analysis and a small Ganesha pendant.