Woman’s body parts found on trains, 1,000 km apart in Rishikesh and Indore; probe on

It was Monday afternoon when the staff at the Yog Nagari railway station in Rishikesh started cleaning the Laxmi Bai Nagar-Yog Nagari Rishikesh Express (14317). The train had arrived at the station on Sunday around 7pm after covering a distance of over 1,100 kms from Laxmi Bai Nagar, a satellite station of Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

As the staff entered the passage area between two sleeper coaches, they caught a foul smell in the coach. To their shock, they found severed body parts wrapped in a black towel. They immediately called the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Dehradun, who came and found four body parts – arms and lower legs.

The Dehradun GRP dialled their counterparts in Indore, only to discover that the latter had recovered dismembered body parts of a woman from a passenger train at the Indore railway station late on Saturday around 11pm. Only the arms and lower legs were missing from that body.

A murder case was registered at Indore under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence (or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code.

“The body parts, arms and lower legs, were four in number. We also found a tattoo on one arm, suggesting that the woman’s name was Miraben. There was paint on the nails. After we spoke to the Indore GRP, they confirmed that the body parts recovered by us were of the same woman whose dismembered parts were recovered from a passenger train in Indore on Saturday night... Forensic experts have examined the parts. We are in constant touch with the Indore GRP to assist in the investigation,” Dehradun GRP station house officer (SHO) Trivendra Singh Rana said.

Prima facie, the body parts recovered in Rishikesh belonged to the same woman, Indore GRP station house officer (SHO) Sanjay Shukla said. “However, we will still perform the DNA examination to confirm this, but that too is possible once the woman’s identity is ascertained.”

“We found the dismembered body of the woman on the Nagda-Mhow (Dr Ambedkar Nagar) passenger train at Indore railway station on Saturday. The train reaches Indore around 7:45pm on its way to Mhow and from there, it returns to Indore by around 10pm for maintenance and cleaning. After reaching Indore on Saturday night, the train moved to the yard for cleaning and maintenance. At around 11pm, the cleaning staff informed us about the recovery of the dismembered body parts, tucked under a seat in two bags. The head and upper body parts were found in a trolly bag, while thighs were kept in plastic sacks. The body appeared to be a few days old. There was a bindi on the forehead. We registered a murder case on Sunday,” Shukla said.

“On Monday afternoon, we found out that the missing body parts have been found during cleaning of a train in Rishikesh. The Rishikesh Express departed from its source station around 3:15pm on Saturday and reached the Yog Nagari station the next evening,” he said.

Shukla said the police have also been scanning the CCTV footage of all halt stations on the train route for leads.