Bhubaneswar: Tamil Nadu police have arrested a couple from Odisha for the alleged murder of a a 15-year-old girl, who worked as a caretaker of their five-year-old son at their house at Bhaganapalli near Panathu in Bengaluru.
The couple – Abinesh Sahu (41) and Aswin Patil (37) – worked in an IT company there.
According to reports, Aswin repeatedly hit the girl, identified as Sumaina from Rajasthan, on her head with a rolling pin for eating her son’s food on September 27. She then locked her up in a room. Sumaina was found dead the following morning.
The couple then stashed the body in a suitcase, and discarded it in a thicket under a bridge along the Salem-Coimbatore National Highway in Sangagiri in Salem district on September 28 night.
The suitcase with nude body of the victim with a polythene cover wrapped around her face was retrieved on September 30.
While it took police some time to verify the identity of Sumaina, subsequent investigation got them a lead indicating that a man had purchased the suitcase from a shop in Bengaluru on September 27. The police then scanned CCTV footage from all toll gates between Hosur and Sankari and spotted a car that didn’t pass beyond Sankari. On contacting the owner, they found that a couple from Bengaluru had sold it to him 10 days ago. Police got details of the couple from the IT company but their phone was found switched off, TOI reported, quoting Sankari sub-division DSP S Raja.
On Tuesday, a team from Tamil Nadu police arrived in Odisha and arrested the couple.
