Ahmedabad: A tip-off allegedly intended to implicate a woman and her cousin in a 2022 murder has led Ahmedabad crime branch to uncover three killings and arrest the woman and her husband, police said. The tip-off yielded nothing suspicious about the cousin.
Police said discrepancies emerged in his statements and further interrogation allegedly led to a confession that he and Urmila had murdered Shanta on Oct 7, 2022. Police said Madhavdas’ mother, 65-year-old Manjula Sadhu, who had been bedridden after suffering paralysis, was allegedly smothered with a pillow by Madhavdas and Urmila on July 19, 2022. Madhavdas and Urmila allegedly smothered her with a pillow on Feb 25, 2022, and claimed that she had died from her illness before burying her body at Kosamba, according to police.
Because of her illness, the couple allegedly told relatives that she had died.
Crime branch officials said that investigators then questioned Madhavdas, who had allegedly provided the tip-off. Shanta was Madhavdas’ grandmother-in-law and Urmila’s grandmother, according to DSP Bharat Patel. Police said the investigation into the three cases began only after the tip-off against Urmila and her cousin led investigators back to Madhavdas.
This raised suspicion about the source of the information. Police allege that the couple smothered her with a pillow while she was sleeping. They allegedly placed her body in a drum and poured three bags of cement and water over it. Three and a half months later, they allegedly cut open the drum and buried the remains in a pit in the house. They later cremated her body at Dholka Chakli Talav crematorium. The third victim was Bharati alias Bhagwati, Urmila’s sister, who was living with Shanta at Kosamba and was suffering from tuberculosis.
Patel said, “The alleged motive behind Shanta’s murder was to usurp her property. Madhavdas allegedly gave different accounts about her death to relatives, claiming at different times that she had died of Covid in Valthera or at Kosamba.”