Madhya Pradesh: Bodies of five missing members of family exhumed from field

The police in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district on Tuesday found the decomposed bodies of five members of a family, who had gone missing last month, NDTV reported.

The bodies of 45-year-old Mamata, her daughters aged 21 and 14, and their two teenaged cousins were dug out from a eight-foot deep pit in a field, according to the news channel.

The police told the NDTV that Surendra Chouhan, the owner of the house where the family lived, and 12 of his associates committed the crime. They have arrested Chouhan and five others so far.

Chouhan was in a relationship with Rupali, the 21-year-old woman, but was planning to marry someone else, India Today reported, quoting the police.

“When Rupali came to know about it, she posted a picture of Surendra’s fiancee on a social networking site along with her number,” the police said. “This enraged Surendra and he planned to eliminate her and others as he suspected that all of them were conspiring to break his engagement.”

On May 13, Chouhan persuaded Rupali’s cousin to bring all of them to the field. They were allegedly strangled and dumped into the pit. The accused covered their bodies with salt and urea to ensure they are decomposed, the police said.

“While Chouhan planned and executed the murders, the five others helped him in digging the pits in which the victims were buried,” Dewas police officer Shiv Dayal Singh told NDTV.

Family members of the deceased had filed a missing person complaint and the police had been investigating the case. During the investigation, the police received a tip-off about Chouhan and his brother from a man who worked at their grandfather’s farm, News18 reported.

The suspects were brought in for questioning and they confessed to the murders, according to News18. “We have enough evidence and we will fast-track this case soon to ensure stringent punishment to the guilty persons,” Additional Superintendent of Police Suryakant Sharma said.