Bengaluru fridge case: Mahalakshmi's husband suspects lover's role in murder

Bengaluru murder case: Hemant Das, the estranged husband of Mahalakshmi, whose dismembered body was found in a refrigerator in her Bengaluru flat, has claimed that she was having an affair. He suggested that her lover from Uttarakhand might be involved in the murder, India Today reported.

Hemant Das Das also said a complaint had been filed against her alleged lover at a Bengaluru police station several months ago.

"…I filed a complaint against him at the Nelamangala police station once. Post the complaint, it was mandated that he must not come to Bengaluru. But I don't know where else they went...," India Today quoted Hemant Das as saying.

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Bengaluru Police commissioner B Dayananda on Monday said the police have identified the prime suspect in the case in which the body of the 29-year-old woman was found chopped up and stuffed into a refrigerator.

"It is being investigated from all angles. The prime suspect has been identified and efforts are underway to arrest him," B Dayananda said at a press conference.

“He's an outsider. We can't give more information as of now as it may help the accused,” the police commissioner said.

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Earlier in the day, Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara said that the police have collected a lot of information regarding the woman's death.

He added that the Bengaluru Police suspects a man reportedly from West Bengal to be behind the murder but added that more evidence is needed to confirm his role.

“The police have collected a lot of information, a lot of clues. One individual is also been...kind of they say he is the one. Unless we collect more information we can't really say. He is from West Bengal they say,” news agency ANI quoted Parameshwara as saying.

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Reacting to the question regarding the government's measures to enhance the safety of women, Parameshwara said, “We have already taken a lot of precautions for women's safety in Bengaluru. We are very careful about it. We have installed CCTV cameras where lot of women go. These kinds of steps we have taken.”

Mahalakshmi had filed complaint against husband

A police officer from the Nelamangala Police station said Mahalakshmi had filed a complaint against Hemant Das in February alleging that he had assaulted her.

Meanwhile, Hemant Das also filed a complaint against her, saying she was having an affair with another man. The police had taken a Non-Cognisable Report (NCR) and their family members had tried to defuse the fight between the couple, The Indian Express reported.

Hemant Das and Mahalakshmi were married for six years and have a daughter. However, the couple started living separately nine months ago due to domestic disputes, India Today reported.

"They both had an extra-marital affair which led to the problem and I discovered it somewhere in April-May last year. For the last nine months, we were separated and I do not know whether she was in contact with the man. When she separated, he was also told not to meet her but I did not know if he met her. For the first four months, my daughter stayed with her (Mahalakshmi) and later she lived with me in Nelamangala,” The Indian Express quoted Das as saying.

Das also said she visited Nelamangala a month ago and met their daughter. “She was calm and did not talk much about her life,” Das added.

“I visited her in July and stayed here with her for a few days in another house. After I and I shifted, she took the house for rent and started living there,” The Indian Express quoted one of Mahalakshmi’s brothers as saying.

He said Mahalakshmi became incommunicado on September 4.

Body was cut into over 30 pieces

Mahalakshmi's body, cut into over 30 pieces, was stuffed in a refrigerator, the police said.

Senior police officers reached the spot and barricaded the road leading to the building where the body was found in a single bedroom house, where the victim was staying alone.

Police suspect it to be a case of murder, which took place about a week ago. An investigation has been launched into the case.

Additional Commissioner of Police (West Zone) N Satheesh Kumar said, “A woman's body was found chopped into pieces and stored in a fridge at a house within the Vyalikaval police station limits. It appeared to have been done 4-5 days ago.”

While Mahalakshmi lived in Malleswaram and was working in a mall, her husband worked in a hermitage away from the city. After learning about the incident, he too came to the spot.

Shraddha Walker murder case

The incident was a stark reminder of the brutal murder of Shraddha Walker by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawalla on May 18, 2022 at Mehrauli in Delhi.

Twenty-eight-year-old Aftab Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence before dumping them across Delhi.