‘No Serial Killer’: Police After Arresting 3 for Murder of Woman Found in Drum

This is the third case in three months where bodies of women of the same age group were found on railway properties.

The deceased woman was identified as 27-year-old Tamanna, who was married to another accused Intikhab.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Video Producer: Shohini Bose

Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam

Three days after alarms went off in Bengaluru on the emergence of another woman's dead body found in a drum at a railway station, the Baiyappanahalli Railway Police arrested three accused and ruled out any serial killer gang after interrogation.

The arrest: After following CCTV footages, police on Wednesday, 15 March, arrested three accused, who were identified as Kamal, 21, Tanveer Alam, 28, and Shakib, 25. During interrogation, it was revealed that the accused had no connection to the previous murder case - when the body of a woman was found in a plastic drum at Yesvantpur Railway Station on 4 January.

The victim: The deceased woman was identified as 27-year-old Tamanna, who was married to another accused Intikhab. As per the police investigation, when Intikhab's elder brother Nawab found out that she was previosuly married to another man named Afroz, he got angry and hatched the murder with the other accused. After the murder, Tamanna's body was dumped at the entry gate of Sir M Visvesvaraiah Terminal (SMVT) Railway Station on Monday, 13 March.

The accused: The victim and all eight accused hail from Bihar's Araria district. The three arrested worked as labourers at the City Market in Bengaluru. The search to nab Nawab and four more accused is on.

The charges: The arrested were booked under Sections 302 (punishment for murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offence or giving false information to screen offender), 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 143 (unlawful assembly), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence commit­ted in the prosecution of common object) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The alarm: This is the third such case in three months where bodies of women of the same age group were found on railway properties, triggering suspicions of a serial killer gang. On 4 January, the decomposed body of a woman, around 30 years of age, was found in a plastic drum at Yesvantpur Railway Station. A month before, on 6 December, the body of another similar-aged woman was found inside a yellow sack in one of the unreserved coaches of Bangarapet-SMVT, Baiyappanahalli MEMU Special.

Railways Superintendent of Police (SP) Soumyalatha SK, told The Quint, "There is no serial killer on the prowl. All three are isolated cases." The other two murder cases remain unsolved till now and the women remain unidentified.