Partner in tomb, chat with family.... Lover boy kills girlfriend, hacks social media accounts to chat with her parents

File picture of Akansha; the marble-topped tomb before it was broken open by the police to retrieve her body; Udayan after his arrest. Pictures by Saeed Faruqui

TT, Feb. 3: The partner of a Bankura woman killed her in Bhopal, buried her in a marble-topped tomb built inside his house and used her social media accounts to chat with her parents in Bengal and convince them for several weeks, if not months, that she was safe, police said today.

The remains of 28-year-old Akansha a.k.a Shweta Sharma were found in the house in Bhopal last night after a neighbour enquiring about stench was literally told that he was "smelling a rat".

Bhopal police believe Akansha was murdered at least a month ago by her lover, Udayan Das, on suspicion that she was in a relationship with another youth. But Bankura police said later that the youth claimed the murder took place last July in the apartment in Bhopal's Saket Nagar, an upper middle class neighbourhood.

Udayan is being brought to Bankura on transit remand. He said his mother was a retired police officer based now in the US and his father a factory owner but the police are yet to verify the claims.

Bhopal police said that after the murder, Udayan had bought 10 bags of cement and buried her under a marble platform inside his bedroom. Superintendent of police Virendra Mishra said Udayan told him that he often slept on the platform.

"We had to dismantle the platform using electronic cutters and drilling machines," Mishra said. "It might be necessary to conduct a DNA test to establish her identity."

Mishra said Udayan had confessed that he stuffed Akansha's body in a trunk, emptied a few cement bags and poured water on top. "He then waited for the mix to set and built a platform with marble tiles on it," Mishra added.

The daughter of a senior bank manager, Akansha had left her Bankura home last June, saying she was going to the US to work for an international aid organisation.

Akansha's brother Ayush, who arrived in Bhopal today, said his sister used to chat online with the family in Bengal. The timing of the chats matched mornings or evenings in New York, which is 10 hours 30 minutes behind Bhopal.

Sometime in December, the chats stopped and her father, Shivendra Kumar Sharma, lodged a complaint with Bankura police.

"On December 5, he informed us that they are not being able to talk to their daughter, who went to the US for a job, over phone for the past five months. She could only be contacted through WhatsApp and Facebook. They suspected that their daughter might have been abducted. Her father had then lodged a missing complaint," said Sukhendu Heera, Bankura SP.

The SP said that using the girl's mobile phone data, the police found the location in Bhopal. "We asked the girl's father whether they had any relatives in Bhopal. He told us that his daughter had a relationship with a youth, Udayan Das, living in Bhopal," said Heera.

The Bankura SP said they became suspicious as they remembered the Sheena Bora murder case. A resignation letter and other email messages from Sheena's account even after she had disappeared had created a perception that she was alive.

The police found that Akansha left home on June 23 and reached Delhi the next day. "She had told her parents that she would take a flight to the US from Delhi but she went to Bhopal from Delhi with the youth. We were told that the girl married Udayan in a temple in Bhopal and was staying at the Saket Nagar house as husband and wife," said an investigating officer.

A police team from Bankura, led by sub-inspector Kaushik Ghosh, went to Bhopal and with the help of local police, they traced the house at Saket Nagar last night.

"We found Udayan alone in the house. During interrogation, he broke down and confessed to the crime. He told us that he used to suspect Akansha of having a relationship with another youth and they often quarrelled over this," said Heera.

Udayan's neighbours said he used to tell them he was an IIT alumnus but they never saw him going to work. "We were intrigued that he was always at home and often locked himself from inside," said Ravindra Ringe.

Ringe said a month ago when he had complained of foul smell from the house, he was told that some rats had died.

The police said Udayan kept making contradictory statements during the interrogation. "He would say he got married in the US with Akansha and then say he had a live-in relationship with her," Mishra said.

Udayan told the police that his mother Indrani Das was a deputy superintendent of police and now lived in the US. He claimed that his mother had been sending him money regularly. "We have doubts about his statements and are trying to verify them," Mishra said.