A clothing tag, vacant plot: How Bengaluru police solved a murder mystery in 1 week

The Bengaluru police have arrested the husband of a 28-year-old woman after a clothing tag helped identify her decomposed body found at a vacant site in Agrahara Layout early this month, officials said on Friday. A group of cleaning workers stumbled upon the mattress-wrapped decomposed body while clearing the vegetation in the plot on September 2.

On visiting the scene, the police said that though the body was in an advanced state of decomposition, making the identification difficult, a tag on the clothes played a vital role in the investigation. The investigators traced the purchase of the clothes to a mall and obtained details that helped establish the identity of the body, the police said.

They identified it as the body of a woman — Anusuya Behra, a native of Odisha. "Using the tag on her clothes, we tracked the shop from where she made the purchase and got her contact information, which helped us trace her husband, Sagar Chandra Ravath, 32, also a native of Odisha," a senior police officer of the special investigation team said.

The police, who arrested the accused on September 9, said the murder had taken place around a month earlier. According to the police, the man allegedly stuffed her body into the mattress, tied it with a rope, and disposed of it on a rainy night as if he was disposing of a mattress.

The couple had been living in Bengaluru and working at different hotels, and Ravath was employed as a kitchen supervisor, the officer said. According to the police, the couple frequently fought over financial matters, and on August 11, Behra allegedly went to the hotel where Ravath worked and confronted him over his salary.

The argument continued, and Ravath allegedly strangled her at their rented home in MS Nagar, the police said. During questioning, he allegedly confessed to the murder and disposal of the body, police said. Ravath told the police that he allegedly stored the body at their house for three days before dumping it at the overgrown vacant site, 500 metres away from their home.

"He monitored the location for four to five days to check if the body was discovered while continuing to work as a kitchen supervisor," said an officer. After the crime, he allegedly switched off the woman’s phone and told her family that she had eloped with someone and could not be traced.

The police had zeroed in on Ravath after learning about the couple’s frequent disputes. They have booked Ravath on charges of murder and causing the disappearance of evidence. Further investigation is underway.