Jagatsinghpur: Two days after her engagement, a young woman was found dead late last night near her house in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district.
The deceased has been identified as Sasmita Dash. Her body was recovered from a field at Kathiapada area under Sadar police limits of Jagatsinghpur town.
According to sources, Sasmita got engaged on Sunday at her maternal uncle’s house in Bhadrak district. Her fiancé, who works in Jamshedpur, had dropped her back home on Monday morning. On Tuesday evening, she left home telling her family she was visiting a friend but never returned. Her mobile phone was found switched off, following which her family lodged a missing persons report at Jagatsinghpur Sadar police station.
Villagers later found her body lying on a field, just half a kilometre away from her residence. They informed her family members and police, who arrived at the scene. Her father, Pramod Kumar Das, identified the body, which showed multiple severe injury marks consistent with a hacking attack. It was sent for postmortem, while scientific teams and sniffer dogs were deployed at the crime scene to collect evidence.
“There are severe hacking injuries on her face, throat. We have registered a case and investigation is underway from homicidal (murder) angle,” Jagatsinghpur DSP Rashmi Ranjan Dash said, while refusing to divulge details, stating that it will hamper investigation.
Police sources indicate Sasmita’s former boyfriend from the Tarikund area is the prime suspect. It is suspected she went to meet him before her disappearance and murder. Her family was aware of this relationship. The motive is believed to be jealousy over her recent engagement and upcoming wedding, scheduled for May 10.
However, Sasmita’s family also pointed to a separate land dispute. Her father alleged that a person had previously threatened to bomb their house and kill family members over a piece of guarded land, and he had filed a complaint on April 1.
