On their wedding night, he gave her a glass of milk laced with poison.
And a few hours later, he dismembered her body with a kitchen knife.
Thus ended the story of an arranged marriage concluded on November 14th, 2019 in New Delhi.
The story of Arin Kumar, a 32-year-old employee of a small logistics company in the Shadar area of East Delhi, was until a certain point completely unremarkable.
He was the younger of two sons in a middle-class family whose life had been governed by a strict and predictable routine for decades.
His father, a retired civil servant, and his mother, a housewife, had invested all their resources and hopes in their children’s education and future.
Arroun’s older brother, had successfully married several years ago.
He already had two children which created additional albeit unspoken pressure on the younger son.
In Indian society, especially in conservative circles, a man of his age who is not married begins to raise questions and concerns among relatives.
For the Kumar family, this issue became paramount.
They saw marriage not so much as a union between two people but as a merging of two families, a continuation of the family line and the fulfillment of a social duty.
According to neighbors and colleagues, Arin was a quiet, withdrawn and non-confrontational person.
He followed the same routine everyday, home, work, home.
His social life was limited to occasional meetings with a few school friends and family celebrations.
He did not have a reputation for being quick-tempered or aggressive.
On the contrary, he was characterized as a diligent worker and an obedient son.
However, as events would later reveal, beneath this outward calm lay a deep-seated dissatisfaction and a rigid adherence to traditional notions of family honor and reputation.
The search for a bride for Aaron lasted more than 2 years.
His parents turned to matchmakers, posted profiles on marriage websites, and interviewed all their distant and close relatives.
The process was exhausting.
Several potential unions fell through during negotiations.
Families could not agree on the size of the dowy.
The horoscopes of the bride and groom were incompatible, or one of the parties found the other insufficiently suited to their social status.
For Aarin, each rejection was another reminder of what he perhaps considered his inadequacy.
He silently observed his parents’ efforts, expressing no preferences of his own and trusting their choice completely.
It was in this atmosphere of prolonged searching and growing family anxiety that the Kumar family came across the profile of 26-year-old Ankit Das.
Her profile on one of the popular marriage portals described her as a modest, educated girl from a good family, possessing all the necessary skills of a housewife and ready to devote herself to her husband and new home.
For Aaron’s parents, this was the ideal portrait of a daughter-in-law.
The Da family lived in the neighboring state of Utar Pradesh and according to preliminary information had a similar social and economic status.
After exchanging photos and horoscope data, which were deemed favorable this time, the families agreed to a first meeting.
This meeting, known as a bride viewing, took place at the Doss family home.
Arun arrived with his parents and older brother to meet her.
Anit dressed in a traditional sari, served tea and sweets to the guests in the presence of her parents, exchanging only a few short phrases with her potential groom.
According to those who attended the meeting, she behaved in a reserved and respectful manner as beffits a future bride in such a situation.
Arun, for his part, said almost nothing, leaving the negotiations to his parents.
The decision was made quickly.
The Kumar family was satisfied with Ankit’s modesty and manners.
In contrast, the Da family saw Arin as a reliable and stable son-in-law from a respected family in the capital.
The next stage began discussing the financial terms of the marriage.
Negotiations about the dowy or dajay even though this practice has been officially banned in India since 1961 remain an integral part of many marriages.
The Kumar family provided a list of expected gifts which included a certain amount of cash, household appliances, and payment for a significant portion of the wedding expenses.
After a brief discussion, Ankit’s family agreed to all the terms.
It was important for them to marry their daughter into the capital, which was considered prestigious.
The wedding date was set for November 14th, 2019.
In the period leading up to the wedding, communication between Arin and Ankit was minimal.
They spoke on the phone several times, but these conversations were formal and brief, mainly concerning the organizational details of the upcoming celebration.
They did not have the opportunity to get to know each other, discuss their views on life, or share their expectations and past experiences.
Their entire future life together was based on a decision made by their families, influenced by social and financial considerations.
For Arnkumar, this marriage was not an act of love, but rather the fulfillment of a duty, a step that was supposed to confirm his status in society and bring peace to his parents.
He expected his future wife to match the idealized image presented to him on the marriage portal and during their first meeting, pure, chasteed, and completely submissive to the will of her husband and his family.
Any deviation from this image in his value system was tantamount to betrayal and carried with it a shame that he believed was impossible to bear.
No one at that moment could have imagined that Ankit Das had a past that her family had carefully concealed and that this very secret would be the catalyst for the tragedy that would unfold with terrifying inevitability on their first and last wedding night.
The wedding ceremony was organized in accordance with all traditions.
The celebrations lasted 2 days and brought together hundreds of guests from both sides of the community.
All the rituals were observed.
The exchange of garlands, the circumambulation of the sacred fire and the application of synindor to the bride’s parting.
Outwardly, everything looked like a happy start to a new life.
Arun and Ankit, dressed in expensive wedding attire, sat side by side, accepting congratulations and gifts.
However, witnesses later noted that the groom looked tense and distant, his smile seemed forced, and his gaze was heavy.
No one paid much attention to this, attributing it to natural excitement before such an important event.
Ankit left her parents’ home and went to her husband’s house in Delhi where a new family and a new life awaited her.
In the evening, after all the ceremonies and seeing off the last guests, the newlyweds were left alone in a room decorated with flowers.
For Ankit, this moment was supposed to be the beginning of her married life.
For Aaron, it was the moment of truth.
It was then, in the silence of their bedroom, that he began the interrogation that led to the fatal outcome.
He began asking her direct questions about her past, her previous relationships, and what her family might have hidden from him.
The answers he received destroyed the ideal image he had built in his mind, and triggered a mechanism of cold, calculated violence.
He felt betrayed and disgraced.
In his world where family honor was valued above all else, such deception was unforgivable.
He saw no other way out but to erase this shame in the most radical way possible.
The disclosure of information that served as a catalyst for subsequent events was not accidental.
Arunar acted methodically.
His questions were precise and insistent.
He did not shout or show open aggression.
Instead, he used oppressive silence and a monotonous voice, which probably had an even stronger psychological impact on Ankit.
He started with general questions about her studies, friends, and how she spent her free time.
Gradually, he narrowed the scope, moving on to more personal topics.
He asked if she had any admirers, if she had ever received marriage proposals before him.
Ankit probably gave evasive and socially acceptable answers at first, trying to fit the image of a modest bride.
However, Arin didn’t back down.
A new harshness appeared in his questions.
He asked directly why her profile on the marriage portal stated that she was 26 years old.
At the same time, some documents he had allegedly seen suggested that she might be older.
This was most likely a bluff, a tactical move designed to throw her off balance.
Then he got to the point.
Have you ever been married before? At that moment, faced with the direct and uncompromising question, Ankit broke down in tears.
Her silence and subsequent tears were tantamount to an admission for Orurin.
Under his relentless pressure, she told the truth that her family had so carefully concealed.
It turned out that four years ago when she was 22, she had indeed been married.
It was not an arranged marriage, but a union based on love against her parents’ will.
Her chosen one was a young man from another cast, which was absolutely unacceptable in the eyes of her conservative family.
They were secretly married in a temple, hoping that over time their families would come to terms with and accept their union.
However, this did not happen.
Ankit’s family disowned her.
The young couple was forced to relocate to another city where they struggled to make ends meet financially.
A year later, they had a baby boy.
However, their life together was short-lived.
Another year later, her husband died in a car accident.
Left alone with a small child and without any support, Ankit was forced to return to her parents’ home.
Her family took her back, but on one condition, no one should ever find out about her marriage and more importantly about the child.
The child was immediately sent to distant relatives in the village, and Ankit herself was effectively placed under house arrest.
For her family, what had happened was an indelible stain on their reputation.
A young widow and one with a child from an intercast love marriage was considered damaged goods in their circles.
The chances of her marrying someone from a respectable family again were zero.
Therefore, they decided to completely erase this episode from her biography.
New documents were fabricated and her life story was changed when a few years later they began looking for a new husband for her.
Ankit was presented as an unmarried girl with no past.
The Kumar family with their strict ideas about purity and honor was the perfect target for such deception.
They were looking not just for a wife for their son but for someone with an impeccable reputation who would strengthen their own social status.
Ankit’s story whispered in the silence of the bridal bedroom sounded like a death sentence to Arin Kumar.
Every word she said confirmed his worst fears.
He was not just deceived.
In his mind, his family had been publicly humiliated.
They had paid money, thrown a lavish wedding, and introduced this woman to hundreds of relatives and friends.
All of it based on a lie.
Images flashed through his mind of how this news would become public knowledge.
The mockery of his neighbors, the contemptuous glances of his colleagues, the reproaches of his relatives.
All this seemed to him an unbearable disgrace.
He felt no sympathy for Ankit’s tragic fate.
He saw her only as the source of his humiliation.
After her confession, he fell silent.
He got up and left the room, leaving her to cry alone.
His subsequent actions were devoid of any impulsiveness.
During questioning, he would later say that at that moment, he felt an icy calm and absolute clarity of thought.
The decision had already been made.
He saw no way to resolve the situation.
Divorce would be as much of a public disgrace as revealing the truth.
In his twisted logic, the only way to erase the humiliation was to physically eliminate its source.
He went down to the kitchen.
The house was asleep.
He took a carton of milk out of the cupboard and poured a glass of milk.
Then from the pantry where the household supplies were kept, he took a package of powerful rodenticide, rat poison, which was stored there to combat rodents.
He poured a generous amount of granules into the milk and stirred thoroughly until they were completely dissolved.
With this glass, he returned to the bedroom.
Anita was still sitting on the bed, her face swollen from crying.
She was probably expecting shouting, a scandal, maybe even him kicking her out of the house.
She couldn’t foresee what would happen next.
Arroun approached her and handed her the glass.
His voice was even and emotionless.
He said it was a tradition to drink warm milk at night for a good start to their life together.
Perhaps at that moment, Ankit saw a glimmer of hope for reconciliation in his gesture.
Perhaps she was too exhausted and frightened to analyze what was happening.
She took the glass and drank its contents to the bottom.
He watched her silently, took the empty glass, and placed it on the table.
Then he lay on his side of the bed and turned away toward the wall.
He did not sleep.
He waited.
It took about an hour for the poison to take effect.
Ankit began to experience severe abdominal pain.
followed by convulsions and vomiting.
She called out to him for help, but Aarin did not move.
He lay there and listened as life slowly left the body of the woman who had been his wife for only a few hours.
He made no attempt to help her, did not call an ambulance.
Her suffering was part of his cold and cruel plan for revenge.
When everything quieted down, he made sure she was dead.
But his plan was not complete.
The poisoning was only the first act.
Ahead lay the second, even more monstrous part, designed to destroy not only her life, but her very identity, turning her body into nameless remains that would be impossible to identify.
As silence fell in the room, Arun Kumar felt neither remorse nor panic.
On the contrary, he acted with the same cold methodicalness that had defined his previous actions.
His main task at this stage was to dispose of the body in such a way as to make its identification as difficult and slow as possible.
He understood that simply taking the body away and dumping it would be too risky.
It could be identified too quickly and the investigation would inevitably lead to him as the husband of the missing woman.
In his logic, dismemberment served two purposes.
First, it allowed the remains to be packed more compactly for transport.
And second, and this was the main thing for him, separating the head from the torso made visual identification much more difficult.
He did not use any special tools to perform this act.
He went back down to the kitchen and chose the largest and most durable kitchen knife he could find.
It was an ordinary chef’s knife that his mother used for cutting vegetables and meat.
This fact alone added a touch of monstrosity to the domestic routine.
He chose the bathroom adjoining their bedroom as the place for the dismemberment.
He carried Ankit’s lifeless body from the bed to the tiled bathroom floor.
This process required considerable physical effort, but he managed it in complete silence.
Before embarking on the main part of his plan, he took steps to minimize any traces of his actions.
He carefully covered the floor with old newspapers and several large plastic garbage bags he found under the kitchen sink.
He acted like a man performing a difficult but familiar task, thinking through each step.
The dismemberment process itself took several hours.
It was an exhausting and messy task.
Using a kitchen knife, he first separated the head from the torso.
Then he separated the limbs.
His actions were not those of a surgeon.
They were rough and chaotic, dictated solely by the utilitarian necessity of making the body suitable for packaging.
Subsequent forensic examination would reveal multiple trial cuts and traces of the blade slipping, evidence of the difficulties he encountered and the persistence he displayed in doing so.
Throughout this time, the house remained silent.
His parents and older brother’s family slept in their rooms on another floor, unaware of the nightmare unfolding just a few meters away.
The only sounds were the muffled noises of his movements and his heavy breathing.
Having completed this part, Arin proceeded to the equally important stage of concealing the evidence.
He wrapped the severed body parts in several layers of thick black garbage bags.
Then he took out a large suitcase on wheels that was stored in the closet.
It was one of the suitcases his family used for long trips.
He carefully placed the bundles with the remains inside, trying to distribute the weight evenly.
He packed the head separately in an opaque plastic bag and also placed it in the suitcase.
He spent the next hour or two thoroughly cleaning the bathroom.
He collected all the newspapers and plastic bags soaked in blood and packed them in a separate bag.
Then using household cleaning products, buckets of water, and rags, he began methodically washing the floor, walls, and fixtures, he poured bleach on the tiles to destroy not only visible stains, but also any biological traces that could be detected by experts.
He washed the knife he had used to commit the crime and returned it to its place in the kitchen drawer, among the other cutlery.
He also removed the sheets and blanket from the bed, which could have traces of poison or vomit on them, and soaked them in a basin with a strong detergent.
His attention to detail was remarkable.
He checked his hands and clothes for stains and washed himself thoroughly in the shower.
By the time dawn was breaking over Delhi, the bathroom had been scrubbed until it sparkled and showed no visible signs of what had happened there.
The suitcase containing Ankita’s body stood by the bedroom door.
The bag with the bloody newspapers and rags was hidden away for later disposal.
Arunumar changed into clean clothes.
Outwardly, he appeared to be an ordinary person getting ready to start a new day.
He had not yet decided how exactly to get rid of the suitcase, but he knew he had to act quickly.
In the morning, his family would wake up and start asking questions about his new daughter-in-law.
He needed to come up with a plausible story about her sudden disappearance to buy some time.
He sat on the edge of the bed in the same room where just a few hours ago his wife had died in agony and waited.
He felt no fatigue.
He was filled with adrenaline and a strange twisted sense of completion.
He had done what he believed was necessary to restore his honor.
Now all that remained was to cover his tracks, and he intended to carry out this final step with the same ruthless efficiency as all the previous ones.
The problem of disposing of the body in a densely populated metropolis such as Delhi required a separate plan.
He couldn’t just leave the suitcase on the street near the house.
That would attract unnecessary attention from the neighbors.
He needed to find a place that was crowded enough that the suitcase wouldn’t look out of place, but where he could leave it unnoticed and quickly disappear.
He chose one of the city’s many bus stations, a place of constant chaos, where thousands of people passed through every day, and where unattended luggage would not immediately arouse suspicion.
When the first rays of sunlight touched the windows of the Kumar family home, Arun was already dressed and mentally rehearsing his story.
He had to act flawlessly so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion.
His mother was the first to wake up and following her long-standing ritual went to the kitchen to make morning tea.
She was surprised to see Arin already up and fully dressed.
When she asked him why he was awake and where Ankit was, he responded with his premeditated calm.
He explained that they had had a difficult conversation during the night.
According to him, Ankit was very homesick and feeling depressed after the move.
He had allegedly suggested that she visit her parents for a few days to recover and adapt to her new life.
He added that he had ordered a taxi for her to the train station early in the morning and she had left, promising to return in 2 or 3 days.
To his mother, this story sounded quite plausible.
The emotional turmoil of a bride who had just left her family home was nothing unusual.
Perhaps she was a little surprised by the haste, but her son’s authority and outward calm dispelled her doubts.
She merely scolded him for not waking her up to see her daughter-in-law off and went about her usual morning routine.
When the rest of the family woke up, Aaron repeated the same story to them.
He behaved completely naturally.
He had breakfast with everyone, discussed work matters with his older brother, and answered his father’s questions about his plans for the day.
Nothing in his behavior betrayed the monstrous secret that was kept in the suitcase in his room.
His self-control was absolute.
He understood that the most risky stage, carrying the body out of the house, was still ahead.
He couldn’t just walk out with a large suitcase in broad daylight.
It would inevitably raise questions.
He needed an excuse.
Waiting until his father and brother had left on their business, and only he, his mother, and his sister-in-law, his brother’s wife, along with the children, remained in the house.
He carried out the second part of his plan.
He told his mother that before leaving, Ankit had asked him to take some of her things that she would not need in the near future to a storage room so as not to clutter up the room.
The suitcase was heavy and he asked her to help him carry it outside to catch an auto rickshaw.
His mother, suspecting nothing, helped him roll the suitcase out of the gate.
For her, it was simply an act of helping her son fulfill his young wife’s request.
Aru waited a few minutes on the street until a vacant auto rickshaw appeared.
He negotiated with the driver to take him to Anand Vihar bus station, one of Delhi’s busiest transport hubs, which serves routes to the neighboring state of Utar Pradesh, where Ankit came from.
This choice was not accidental.
It created the additional appearance that his actions were somehow connected with her departure.
The trip through Delhi’s morning traffic took about an hour.
Arun sat silently in the back seat next to the suitcase that contained all that remained of his wife.
Around him, city life bustled as usual.
Merchants laid out their wares.
School children hurried to class.
Office workers rushed to work.
The contrast between the ordinariness of the surrounding world and the horrific reality of his cargo was striking.
But judging by his subsequent testimony, it made no impression on him.
He was completely focused on his task.
Arriving at the Anand Vihar bus station, he paid the driver and unloaded the suitcase.
The station was a sthing cauldron of human destinies.
Thousands of people with luggage scured back and forth.
The platforms were crowded with passengers waiting for their buses, and the air was filled with the hum of voices, the roar of engines, and announcements from loudspeakers.
It was the perfect chaos to get lost in and leave something unnoticed.
Arun, slowly pulling his heavy suitcase behind him, entered the main waiting room.
He was in no hurry.
He walked through the entire hall, looking around carefully, choosing a suitable place.
He chose a spot by the wall next to a column where several bags and bundles had already been left by other passengers.
It was a hightraic area, but somewhat shaded, where abandoned luggage would not immediately attract attention.
He put his suitcase on the floor, looked around to make sure no one was paying close attention to it, and walked away.
He didn’t run or quicken his pace.
He blended in with the crowd heading for the exit and left the bus station a few minutes later.
On the street, he caught another auto rickshaw and went in the opposite direction, but not home.
He went to work as if it were a normal working day.
He was sure that he had managed to get rid of the main piece of evidence.
In his mind, the suitcase could be found in a few days, maybe weeks.
By that time, the body would be in such a state that it would be virtually impossible to identify it.
He believed that even if the police found the remains, they would investigate the case as an unknown body and would never connect this terrible discovery with him, a respected member of society, and his runaway wife.
Returning home in the evening, he continued to play his role.
He answered his mother’s questions about how his day had gone with monoyllables.
He told his family that he had called Ankit’s parents and told them that their daughter was on her way to them.
This was another lie designed to strengthen his alibi and delay the moment when someone would start looking for her.
He was convinced that he had committed the perfect crime.
He had eliminated the source of his shame, disposed of the body, and created a convincing cover story.
He had underestimated only one factor, chance, which in a crowded metropolis on high alert worked much faster than he could have imagined.
The suitcase left by Arnkumar by a pillar in the waiting room of the Anan Vihar bus station did not remain unnoticed for as long as he had hoped.
In the context of heightened terrorist threats which are a constant reality for large Indian cities, any unattended item in a crowded place is considered a potential danger.
Within an hour and a half to 2 hours after Arin left the station, a security patrol officer noticed the blue suitcase on wheels standing unattended.
Following instructions, he asked nearby vendors and passengers if the luggage belonged to them.
Receiving negative answers, he reported the find to the central security office.
Several announcements were made over the loudspeaker asking the owner of the blue suitcase to come to the security office.
When no one responded within the next 30 minutes, the standard security procedure was initiated.
The area around the suitcase was cordoned off and passengers were asked to move to a safe distance.
A team of bomb disposal experts with a dog trained to search for explosives was called to the station.
The dog sniffed the suitcase and showed no signs of concern, allowing the bomb disposal experts to make a preliminary conclusion that there was no explosive device inside.
Nevertheless, to be completely sure, the suitcase was scanned with a portable X-ray machine.
The image on the monitor screen was blurry.
Still, it revealed the presence of irregularly shaped organic contents inside rather than wires, batteries, or detonators, which are characteristic of a bomb.
After that, a decision was made to open the suitcase.
This procedure was carried out with all precautions in place.
Two police officers wearing gloves carefully placed the suitcase on the floor and unzipped it.
The contents that appeared before their eyes shocked even the most experienced police officers accustomed to various manifestations of cruelty.
Inside, tightly packed in black garbage bags, were dismembered human body parts.
A sharp, distinctive odor began to spread throughout the area.
Despite the packaging, the cordonedoff area was immediately expanded.
For several hours, the bus station became the scene of a large-scale police operation.
An investigative team led by high-ranking officers from the Delhi Police Criminal Investigation Department immediately arrived at the scene.
Forensic experts from the Central Forensic Laboratory also arrived.
The first priority was to document all the details of the crime scene.
Forensic experts carefully photographed the suitcase and its location before proceeding to remove its contents.
Each bag was removed with utmost care to preserve any possible evidence, including fibers, hair, and fingerprints.
The suitcase itself was carefully examined for any identification tags, airline stickers, or unique markings that could help trace its origin or owner.
However, it turned out to be completely ordinary.
one of thousands of similar models sold throughout the country.
The contents of the bags confirmed the initial conclusions.
The remains belonged to a young woman.
The body had been dismembered with great force, but without professional skill.
The head had been packed separately, which immediately made the task of identifying the person a priority and at the same time extremely difficult.
Without a face or documents, the victim was nameless.
The remains were immediately sent to the morg for forensic examination.
Pathologists had to determine the exact cause of death, the time of death, and collect samples for DNA analysis.
In parallel with the work of the forensic scientists, detectives began the first stage of the investigation.
They began interviewing all possible witnesses, including security personnel, vendors from nearby kiosks, porters, and auto rickshaw drivers on duty at the entrance.
However, in the chaos of the crowded station, no one could remember the person who had left that particular blue suitcase.
Hundreds of people left and picked up their luggage every hour.
Iron Kumar’s face had disappeared into the faceless crowd.
The next step was to review the CCTV footage.
It was painstaking work.
There were dozens of cameras installed at the station.
Investigators had to review hours of footage from each one to try to find the moment when the suitcase appeared at the column and track down the person who brought it.
The image quality on many cameras left much to be desired, and the angles were not always ideal.
Nevertheless, it was the only real lead the investigation had at that point.
News of the gruesome discovery quickly leaked to the media.
Evening news programs and news websites were filled with headlines about the murder in a suitcase.
This led to a public outcry and increased pressure on the police.
The case was taken under special control by the Delhi police leadership.
A special team of top investigators was formed to investigate the matter.
The main problem they faced was fundamental.
They did not know who had been killed.
Without identifying the victim, it was impossible to begin narrowing down her circle of acquaintances, checking possible motives, and searching for suspects.
The police sent out circulars to all police stations in Delhi and neighboring states with a description of the remains found and a request to check all reports of missing women filed in recent days.
However, at that point, Ankit Das’s family did not yet know that their daughter was missing.
They believed the story Arin had told them on the phone and were waiting for her to arrive.
Arun Kumar at home watched the news reports on television.
He watched the footage of the bus station cordoned off by police and may have felt a sense of triumph.
Everything was going according to his plan.
They had found a body, but they did not know who it was.
To him, it was just another nameless victim in another crime story with no connection.
He was confident that his connection to the suitcase would never be established.
Days passed.
While the special investigation team in Delhi reached a dead end, busy with the routine work of checking hundreds of missing person reports that did not match the victim’s profile, anxiety grew in the Doss family home in Utar Pradesh.
It had been 3 days since Arin Kumar had called them to say that Ankit had left for home.
However, she had not shown up.
Her cell phone was constantly turned off.
At first, her parents attributed this to possible delays on the road or to the fact that she might have stopped by to visit a relative on the way without telling them.
However, by the end of the third day, their concern had turned into serious apprehension.
They called Arin’s cell phone repeatedly, but he either did not answer or responded curtly, saying that he had no new information, and that he was beginning to worry himself.
His tone was calm and demonstratively sympathetic, but he did not offer any real assistance, such as contacting the police and filing a missing person report.
He advised them to wait a little longer, suggesting that she might want to be alone.
This passive behavior began to seem strange and suspicious to Ankit’s family.
Meanwhile, investigators in Delhi received the first results of the forensic examination which added important new details to the case.
Pathologists confirmed that the woman’s death was not the result of dismemberment.
The cause of death was poisoning with the powerful toxin aluminium phosphide, the main component of many rodenticides.
The poison caused extensive internal bleeding and organ failure.
The dismemberment was performed postmortem.
The time of death was estimated to be approximately 36 to 48 hours before the body was discovered, which corresponded exactly to the night of November 1415.
The examination also established that the deceased was between 25 and 30 years old and had given birth at least once in the past.
This last detail was recorded in the report as a special feature.
Still, its true significance could not be understood by the investigation at that time.
At the same time, hours of work with CCTV footage finally bore fruit.
On one of the cameras located above the entrance to the waiting room, forensic experts managed to find a relatively clear frame.
It showed a man of medium height and build dressed in a dark jacket and jeans pushing a blue suitcase.
Although his face was partially hidden by the shadow of the visor, his general features were distinguishable.
Digital image processing specialists were able to slightly improve the images clarity.
This was not sufficient for 100% identification, but it was sufficient to work with the image.
The police decided to publish the image in the media and offer a reward for any information that would help identify this person.
The photo of the suspect and details of the case, the dismembered body of a young woman found in a suitcase at a bus station were shown on all major news programs and printed in newspapers.
It was a standard but often effective move, counting on the fact that someone among the millions of viewers or readers would be able to identify the person in the photo.
It was this step that proved fatal for Arun Kumar.
In a small town in Utar Pradesh, a distant relative of the Da family who had attended the wedding was watching the evening news.
When a blurry photo of a man with a suitcase appeared on the screen, he did not immediately pay attention to it.
But then the announcer began to list the details.
A Nand Vihar bus station from which routes led to Utar Pradesh among other places and a young woman approximately the same age.
Something in this story made him look more closely at the image on the screen.
Despite the poor quality, the posture, hairline, and general facial features seemed vaguely familiar to him.
He called his wife, and together they began to discuss who this man reminded them of.
And then it dawned on them.
The man in the photo bore a striking resemblance to Aaron Kumar, their niece Ankit’s new husband.
At first, this thought seemed monstrous and implausible to them, but the facts painted an alarming picture.
Ankit had disappeared at exactly that time.
She was supposed to be traveling the same route, and her husband was behaving in an extremely passive and detached manner.
After agonizing hesitation, realizing the seriousness of the possible consequences, this relative decided to act.
He called Ankit’s parents and told them about his terrible suspicions.
This news came as a shock to the Doss family.
They immediately turned on the TV and saw the news footage for themselves.
Horror and disbelief gave way to chilling certainty.
The man in the photo really did look like their son-in-law.
Anita’s father gathered all his courage, found the Delhi police hotline number on the internet, which was shown on the screen, and made a call.
With a trembling voice, he told the officer on duty that he might know who the man in the photo was.
He gave the name Arun Kumar.
More importantly, he reported that his daughter, Ankit Das, Arun Kumar’s wife, had gone missing around the same time the body was found.
He provided the police with a detailed description of his daughter, including her age and distinguishing characteristics.
This call came as a bolt from the blue for the investigation.
After several days of fruitless searching, they suddenly had their first real lead.
Now they had the name of the alleged suspect and most importantly, the name of the alleged victim.
The circle was complete.
Detectives immediately began checking the information they had received.
They looked up recent marriages registered in Delhi.
They quickly found a record of the marriage of Arun Kumar and Ankit Das which took place on November 14th, 2019.
The groom’s address matched the Shadara area.
All the information was confirmed.
For the police, the case entered a completely new phase.
Now it was no longer an investigation into the murder of an unknown woman, but a targeted investigation of a specific suspect.
A SWAT team was immediately dispatched to the Kumar family’s address in Shadara.
They did not yet know all the details, but their intuition told them they were on the right track.
Arunar was at home at that moment, getting ready for bed, still completely confident that his crime would remain unsolved.
He could not have imagined that a blurry image from a surveillance camera and a single phone call hundreds of kilometers away from Delhi had already sealed his fate.
Late in the evening, when most of the residents of the quiet residential neighborhood in Shadar were already asleep, several unmarked cars pulled up silently to the Kumar family’s house.
Among them were plain clothes officers from the Delhi Police Criminal Investigation Department.
The arrest operation was planned to avoid unnecessary noise and panic.
Two officers remained to watch the perimeter while the main group approached the front door.
Arroun’s father opened the door when they knocked.
Seeing their police IDs, he was shocked and confused.
Without going into details, the investigators informed him that they needed to speak with his son, Arun Kumar, as part of an investigation into a serious case.
Arun himself came out when he heard the noise.
Seeing the police on the doorstep, he froze for a moment, but then quickly regained his composure.
His face reflected a well-rehearsed surprise.
He politely inquired about the matter.
When the senior investigator said his name and informed him that he had to accompany them to the station for questioning, Arin began to feain indignation.
He claimed that they had made a mistake, that he was a law-abiding citizen and had nothing to do with crime.
His parents, completely unaware of the situation, began to support their son, assuring the police that there had been a misunderstanding.
However, the investigators were adamant.
They presented a warrant and without using force, but firmly, led Arin out of the house and put him in one of the cars.
The entire arrest scene took no more than 10 minutes.
For the Kumar family, it was like a nightmare that they could neither understand nor explain.
At the police station, Arun Kumar was placed in an interrogation room.
Initially, he remained very confident, completely denying any involvement in any crime.
He repeated his prepared story.
His wife Ankit had left to stay with her parents after a minor argument and he had not seen her since.
He claimed that on the day she left, he was at work as usual.
When investigators asked him about his trip to the Anand Vihar bus station, he categorically denied it, stating that he had not been there and did not know what suitcase they were talking about.
The interrogation lasted several hours.
Experienced investigators did not pressure him physically, but used psychological methods.
They methodically, step by step, destroyed his line of defense.
First, they showed him the very frame from the surveillance camera.
Arin claimed that the photo showed a man who resembled him and that this was not evidence.
Then, the investigators went further.
They informed him that Ankit Doss’s family had filed an official missing person report and identified him in the photo.
This was the first serious blow to his confidence.
He realized that his story about his wife safely traveling to her parents’ house had fallen apart.
He began to show the first signs of nervousness, but continued to deny everything nonetheless.
The turning point came when the investigators changed their tactics.
They stopped asking him about the suitcase and the bus station.
Instead, the lead investigator looked him straight in the eye and in a calm, almost matter-of-fact tone asked a question that Arin did not expect to hear.
Arun, tell us about Ankit’s first husband.
At these words, all self-control left him.
His face changed.
He realized that his biggest secret, the reason he had committed the murder, was no longer a secret.
He realized that the police knew everything.
His silence lasted several minutes.
The investigators did not rush him, allowing him to realize the hopelessness of his situation.
Then, just as calmly, the investigator added, “We also know about her child.
” That was the last straw.
Arun Kumar broke down.
He lowered his head and began to speak in a quiet, emotionless voice.
His confession shocked even the seasoned detectives.
He showed not a shred of remorse or regret.
He spoke of what had happened as if it were the solution to some logical problem.
He described in detail, step by step, the entire sequence of events, starting with the conversation on their wedding night and ending with the disposal of the suitcase.
He told how Ankit had confessed her past to him and how he had taken it as a personal insult and an indelible disgrace to his entire family.
She and her family deceived us,” he said in a monotone voice.
“They hid the fact that she was already married and had a child.
I couldn’t live with such shame.
I couldn’t let our relatives and neighbors find out about it.
” He described in detail how he poisoned her with milk laced with rat poison and waited for her to die.
Then, with frightening composure, he recounted the process of dismembering her in the bathroom.
the kitchen knife he used, how he packed the remains in a suitcase, and how he methodically washed away all traces.
He even specified which cleaning products he used.
He recounted how he had acted out a scene in front of his parents the next morning, making up a story about Ankit’s departure and how he had taken the suitcase out of the house.
His story was so detailed and emotionless that it seemed as if he were reporting on a job well done.
The investigators recorded his every word.
Based on his confession, the police immediately went to his home to conduct an investigative experiment and collect material evidence.
In the presence of witnesses, Arunar showed them the bathroom where he had dismembered the body.
Despite his thorough cleaning, forensic experts used special reagents to find hidden traces of blood on the tiles and in the drain.
He pointed to a kitchen drawer where the knife was kept, which after examination confirmed the presence of microparticles matching the victim’s DNA.
He also showed where he had soaked the bloodstained sheets.
The case was solved.
The suspect’s confession was backed up by irrefutable material evidence.
Arin Kumar was officially arrested on charges of murder, kidnapping, and concealment of evidence.
The news of his confession came as a shock to everyone who knew him.
His family was devastated, unable to believe that their quiet, obedient son could have committed such a heinous crime.
For Ankit’s family, it confirmed their worst fears, plunging them into an abyss of grief.
The mystery of the suitcase murder, which had kept all of Delhi in suspense for several days, was solved.
But behind the dry facts of police reports and newspaper headlines lay the tragedy of two families destroyed by lies, false notions of honor, and one act of unthinkable cruelty.
The trial of Arin Kumar began a few months after his arrest.
It attracted considerable attention from the Indian public and media.
The case dubbed the bride in the suitcase murder by the press became a symbol of the dark side of arranged marriages and honor killings.
The trial was held in a fasttrack court in Delhi due to the widespread public outcry and the irrefutable nature of the evidence presented.
The prosecution represented by the Delhi public prosecutor’s office based its case on three main pillars.
Arun Kumar’s detailed and voluntary confession, irrefutable forensic and criminal evidence, and witness testimony, primarily from members of the victim’s family.
The prosecutor methodically presented the entire chronology of the crime to the court, starting with the motive that arose after Ankit’s secret was revealed and ending with the coldblooded disposal of the body.
CCTV footage from the bus station was shown.
DNA analysis results were presented, confirming that the remains in the suitcase belonged to Ankit Das and that microtraces found in the bathroom of the Kumarov’s home matched her DNA.
The pathologist’s report, which established the cause of death as poisoning, became one of the key documents proving the premeditated nature of the murder.
The lawyers representing Arun Kumar’s defense found themselves in a challenging position.
Given his full confession, it was impossible to dispute the fact that he had committed the murder.
Therefore, their strategy was aimed at mitigating the severity of the sentence.
The defense tried to prove that Arin’s actions were not the result of cold calculation.
Still, it was the result of a state of effect caused by severe and sudden provocation.
They argued that the deception on the part of Ankit’s family, who had concealed her previous marriage and the existence of a child, had caused their client deep psychological trauma and a blow to his honor, which provoked him to commit the crime.
The lawyers emphasized that Aaron, who had been raised in a strict traditional environment, was unable to cope with the feelings of shame and humiliation.
They characterized him as a victim of deception whose reaction, although excessive and criminal, was provoked by the actions of the other party.
However, this argument was consistently refuted by the prosecution.
The prosecutor pointed out that Arin Kumar’s actions after learning the truth demonstrated not emotion, but exceptional cold-bloodedness and calculation.
He did not attack his wife in a fit of rage.
Instead, he calmly went down to the kitchen, prepared the poisoned milk, waited for the poison to take effect, and then methodically dismembered the body, and covered up the traces over the course of several hours.
All these actions, according to the prosecution, testified to a premeditated plan aimed not only at murder, but also at concealing the crime, which completely ruled out the version of a sudden provocation.
Arun Kumar himself behaved aloofly throughout the trial and showed no emotion.
He answered questions mechanically, showing neither remorse nor regret for his actions.
His testimony in court was completely consistent with his initial confession.
He confirmed once again that he had committed the murder because he could not come to terms with the deception and shame.
This position, devoid of any remorse, made a heavy impression on the judges and everyone present in the courtroom.
The court heard the testimony of Ankit’s parents.
Their statements were filled with grief and despair.
They admitted that they had concealed their daughter’s past.
Still, they explained that they had done so out of fear, that they would never be able to remarry her and secure her future otherwise.
With tears in their eyes, they recounted how they had entrusted their daughter to a man who had so brutally taken her life.
On the other hand, Orin’s parents, called as witnesses, were in a depressed state.
They described their son as quiet and obedient and could not find an explanation for his actions.
Their lives had been destroyed.
Not only had they lost their son, but they also faced the public condemnation and shame that Arin himself had feared so much.
After several weeks of hearings, the courts delivered its verdict.
Arun Kumar was found guilty on all counts, murder with particular cruelty, section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, and concealment of evidence of a crime, section 2011.
In his closing statement, the judge noted that the crime had been committed with exceptional cynicism and cold-bloodedness.
He emphasized that no notions of honor and shame could justify the taking of a human life.
The court sentenced Arnkumar to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
The case of Arnkumar and Ankit Das ended with a harsh but fair sentence.
However, it left deep scars.
This story is a tragic testimony to how in the 21st century archaic notions of family honor, social status, and the purity of a bride continue to maim and take lives.
A marriage that was supposed to be the beginning of a new life for two people, turned into death and destruction for two families.
It was built on a foundation of lies dictated by social pressure and collapsed under the weight of cruelty born of wounded pride.
Ultimately, Arun Kumar’s desire to avoid shame led him to even greater and eternal shame.
The stigma of a cold-blooded murderer who destroyed the woman who had been his
