Cuttack Woman's Murder Mystery Cracked, Husband Among Three Held

BHUBANESWAR: The police in Cuttack successfully cracked the case of an unidentified woman's murder, whose body was found on a riverbank on Friday. The victim was identified as Padmabati Samal, aged 35. Three men were arrested in connection with the crime: her husband, Balaram Dehuri (32), his younger brother Jagannath Dehuri (27), and their cousin Happy Dehuri (20).

The investigation revealed that the murder was driven by marital disputes between Padmabati and her husband. A key lead in the case came from a receipt from 'New Star Tailors', found on a blood-stained shirt near the victim's body. Although the receipt did not have location details, investigators identified at least 10 tailoring shops in Odisha with the same name. However, none of them had matching receipts.

A breakthrough occurred when a tailor in Ganjam district, who had worked in Gujarat, recognized that the receipt might have come from a shop in Surat. This led to collaboration between the Cuttack and Gujarat police. The Surat shop owner, however, lacked customer records but provided a vital clue: a UPI transaction of Rs 100 to a man named Babu. Tracing the phone number linked to this transaction, investigators discovered it belonged to Jagannath Dehuri, who was working in Surat.

The police tracked Jagannath to Rayagada and arrested him on a train heading to Surat. During interrogation, he confessed that the murder was a result of the chronic marital disputes between Balaram and Padmabati. Balaram had enlisted the help of his brother Jagannath and cousin Happy to kill Padmabati. The perpetrators brutally killed her and used a sharp-edged weapon to disfigure her face.