Men in India Are Killing Women and Leaving a Trail of Their Body Parts

Police have detained a man in the India-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir after he confessed to killing a woman, chopping up her body and dumping the parts in different locations. 

On March 7, a 30-year-old woman, whose name has not been revealed, went missing and her brother registered a missing person’s report the following day. Police said that Shabir Ahmad Wani was rounded up among other suspects and was arrested after he confessed. 

District police officials in Budgam, where the crime took place, were not available for a comment but in a press conference on Sunday, they told local media that the accused had chopped up the body into many pieces. The police were able to retrieve those pieces scattered in different parts of the city, based on the accused’s statement. “We also recovered the weapon of offence,” the official said. “After a medico-legal report, we’ve return the body [parts] to the family.”

The police have not confirmed it but some are speculating that the accused killed the victim for refusing to marry a relative of his. The victim was engaged and supposed to get married in August.

As police investigate, protests have erupted in Budgam, with people demanding capital punishment and a fast-track probe. This case has also put a spotlight on a rising trend in India of people chopping up bodies—mostly by men of women—and scattering the pieces. 

At least seven similar murders have been reported in the last five months. 

“This is the first time that so many cases with the same method have cropped up within such a short time,” Vikram Singh, the former director general of police of Uttar Pradesh state, which reports some of the highest crime rates in India, told VICE World News. “This definitely rings alarm bells.” 

India consistently records the world’s highest number of violent crimes against women, and according to the most recent official data, released last year for 2021, there has been a 26.35 percent rise of such crimes over the past six years. 

The first known case in India of someone chopping up their victim was in 1995, when a politician shot dead his wife over suspicions of an affair, chopped her up and stuffed her in a traditional urn-shaped oven at his friend’s restaurant. The accused, Sushil Sharma, who served a life sentence, was released in 2018. 

In November, a 28-year-old man, Aaftab Amin Poonawala, was arrested in the Indian capital New Delhi for chopping up the body of his live-in girlfriend, Shraddha Walker, into 35 pieces and disposing of them at a nearby forest over the course of 18 days. Poonawala confessed to the crime, and a history of domestic abuse surfaced. 

The same month, another man in Uttar Pradesh state was arrested for chopping up his wife’s body as he suspected she was cheating on him. Also in November, a woman and her son chopped up her husband into 22 pieces and refrigerated his body for allegedly cheating on her. 

In December, in the western Indian state of Jharkhand, a man was arrested after parts of his wife’s body were discovered by dogs and local residents. Also in December, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, a woman’s chopped-up body was found in a drum inside a locked-up rented apartment. 

In January, yet another man was arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad city for allegedly killing his wife’s alleged lover by chopping him up into 15 pieces. Last month, a man was arrested for allegedly killing his 22-year-old wife and storing her body in his restaurant. Cops told the media that the family of the accused, Sahil Gehlot, helped murder the victim as they didn’t approve of her. The night after he killed her, Gehlot married another woman. The investigations in all these cases are ongoing. 

Indian clinical psychologist Bhavna Barmi told VICE World News that this kind of brutality signifies “a deep-seated desire for control or dominance over the victim, as well as a need to physically dismember or destroy them.”

“Violence and brutality are often a reflection of deeper societal issues,” she said. “It could be related to poverty, childhood trauma, lack of education, cultural or religious beliefs, mental health issues, or a combination of factors.” 

While these cases have different motivations, the method of the crimes have transfixed the Indian public. Some experts say that public interest in the details of these crimes has increased coverage of them. In the case of Poonawala, Indian news channels showed how the accused “slapped” his murdered girlfriend’s severed head that he kept in the fridge, and talked to it too. 

Singh, the former director general of police, blames the influence of true crime shows. In Poonawala’s case, police said he was inspired by popular American fictional drama Dexter, in which the protagonist chops up his victims into pieces to cover his tracks. 

Singh said that the accused are emboldened by the poor record of law enforcement in India in solving such crimes. 

“There’s no guarantee of punishment in most of these reported cases,” said Singh. “In some cases, police complaints might not be lodged, or there’s no fast track court, or convictions might take decades. The odds are in the accused’s favour.”

Barmi added that the authorities must not just expedite investigations, but also focus on long-term solutions to prevent similar incidents in the future. “To reduce violence and brutalities, authorities must invest in education and awareness campaigns.”

Follow Pallavi Pundir on Twitter.