Dehradun army officer arrested for murder of Nepali girl

Garhwal Post - September 14, 202, Dehradun : Dehradun Police have arrested an in-service army officer on murder charges. The army officer is of the rank of a Lieutenant Coloneland is currently posted in Clement Town. It may be recalled that the dead body of a woman was recovered from the forests off Raipur-Thano Road. According to police sources, the woman, named Shreya Sharma and aged between 25 and 30 years, was a resident of Kathmandu, Nepal, and used to work in Siliguri. It was here that she had come in touch with Lt Col Ramendu Upadhyay, who was then posted in the North East. Both came close to each other and went on to have a live-in relationship. The Police claim that the reason behind the murder was the pressure being put by the girl on the Army Officer for marriage.

The arrested Army Officer, Lt Col Ramendu Upadhyay (42), lives currently in Panditwari area under Police Station of Prem Nagar, and is a native resident of Mohalla Chandrashekhar Nagar, Rosa Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh (UP).

Lt Col Upadhyay is a 2010 batch Army Officer. In January 2020, he met Shreya Sharma(30), a girl of Nepali origin, at a Dance Bar in City Centre Mall, Siliguri, West Bengal. He and Shreya Sharma developed an intimate relationship and reportedly started living with each other. However, soon after, Upadhyay was transferred to Dehradun and he brought Shreya to live with him here. However, Upadhyay was a married man and his wife came to know about this relationship. She arranged for Shreya to be sent back to Siliguri.

After a while, the army officer again called Shreya to Dehradun and this time kept her in a local hotel here for a few days before renting a flat in Clement Town. This time, however, Shreya started pressurising him to marry her, which led the Lt Col to plan her murder. 

"After getting posting in Dehradun, I brought her with me, but when my wife got to know about Shreya, I sent her back to Siliguri," Upadhyay said. However, after few days, Upadhyay called her back to Dehradun and rented a flat for her where he used to meet her. Things turn awry when frequent quarrels started between him and Shreya as she pressured him to marry her.

Shreya used to abuse him and ask for liquor and food.

The accused said Shreya used to abuse him and ask for liquor and food from hotels. Upadhyay said he used to make food as she did not know how to cook food. Upadhyay's wife also came to know about Shreya residing in Dehradun after which both of them had an argument.

Pestered by her marriage demand, Upadhyay hatched a conspiracy to kill her

On 9 September, the Colonel took Shreya to a local club on Rajpur Road where they had drinks till late evening. After this, he took the girl to Thano Road and parked his car inside the forest near village Saura Saroli. Both, he and the girl were in a drunken state. Here, the officer took out a hammer and smashed her to death and even tried to burn her face afterwards to make her unrecognisable. He then disposed of the body in the forest and returned to his residence, and hid his car somewhere nearby.

However, the Police managed to solve the case within two days of the murder and the murderer was arrested today from Clement Town area.

PTI, Dehradun : An army officer allegedly killed a 30-year-old woman with whom he was in an extramarital relationship after she started pressing him to marry her, police said on Monday.

Ramendu Upadhyay, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, was arrested on Monday for the murder of the woman whose body with injury marks on the head was found on the outskirts of the city on Sunday, SP (City) Sarita Dobhal said.

Upadhyay who was posted in Clement Town here had alcohol with the woman, identified as Shreya Sharma, in a restaurant on Saturday night and offered to take her on a long drive to which she agreed.

However, after reaching a desolate place on the outskirts of the city he parked the car and hit the woman repeatedly on the head with a hammer until she died, Dobhal said.

After killing Shreya, Upadhyay dumped her body along the roadside and drove away, the SP said, adding that the army officer was already married and was under pressure from the woman to marry her.

The army officer has confessed to the crime, she said.

The murder weapon, the car used for the crime and the clothes Upadhyay was wearing at the time of committing the crime had been recovered, the SP said.

The army officer in his 40s had been transferred recently to Dehradun from Siliguri where he met Shreya, a woman of Nepali origin, for the first time in a dance bar.

Their friendship soon grew into a relationship, police said.

Upadhyay told police that after being transferred to Dehradun, he had rented a separate flat for Shreya here.

They used to meet at her flat and she would often complain that he was not giving her the status of a wife, police said.