BATHINDA – Police recovered the chopped-up body of a missing air force employee from the residential quarters of a sergeant in the Bhisiana air force station on Tuesday.
The pieces of the body of Vipin Shukla, a corporal in the Air Force Wives Welfare Association Canteen, were found stuffed in 16 polythene bags and hidden in different parts of the accused’s quarters.
The accused, Sulesh Kumar, and his wife Anuradha have been arrested, while Kumar’s brother-in-law Shashi Bhushan, who worked in the Merchant Navy, is absconding. A case under section 302 (murder) has been registered against the accused.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shukla, a resident of Gonda in Uttar Pradesh, joined the air force in 2009 and was posted at the Bhisiana air force station in May 2014. He reportedly went missing on February 8.
Following a complaint by his wife Kumkum, a case of kidnapping was registered against unknown persons at Bathinda’s Nathana police station on February 15.
In a press conference, superintendent of police (traffic), Gurmeet Singh, said that a team of Punjab police and air force station officials detected a foul smell from Sulesh Kumar’s residential quarters on Tuesday, after which they discovered the victim’s cut-up body.
Kumar, the accused, confessed to his crimes on interrogation, and claimed that the victim had illicit sexual relations with his wife Anuradha.
The SP said, “(After discovering she was pregnant,) Anuradha asked Vipin to marry her but he refused. He had also been spreading details of their relationship among other employees. Thus, Anuradha, with her husband and brother hatched a conspiracy to murder Vipin for revenge.”
“On the evening of February 8, Sulesh called Vipin to help him pack as he was to change his quarters, then attacked him with an axe, killing him. He then packed Vipin’s body in a box and took it to his new quarters,” he added.
“On February 19, Sulesh cut the body into pieces with a meat knife and packed it in 16 polythene bags. He put some in the wardrobe and the others in the refrigerator,” he said.
The police are yet to ascertain how the accused planned to dispose of the body.
