Virar: Suitcase murder solved within 24 hours

Contact number on a jewellery pouch, WB police help in capture of victim’s husband

The contact number on a jewellery pouch, found with the severed head of a woman inside a suitcase in the Virar jungle, helped Crime Branch Unit 3 to solve a murder mystery within 24 hours and nab the victim’s husband.

Harish Hipparagi, 49, husband of the murdered woman, Utpala alias Soma Das, 51, was arrested from Nalasopara on Friday night. However, the victim’s torso has yet to be found from the drain in Nalasopara East where the killer had decapitated her body using a chopper on January 8.

According to the police, Das and Hipparagi got married nearly 25 years ago, and have a 22-year-old son. They were living in a rented flat in Nalasopara East and worked together in making imitation jewellery.

The murdered woman and her husband, who has been arrested

“Das was a native of Naihati city in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, while Hipparagi hails from Hubli district in Karnataka. After their love marriage, Das would often go back to her hometown and come back after six or seven months,” inspector Sahuraj Ranaware, in-charge of Unit 3, Crime Branch, Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar (MBVV) Police told mid-day.

“This time too, she had been planning to go to her hometown on January 10. This angered Hipparagi who strangled her to death on January 8 when their son was away at his friend’s place,” Ranaware added.

Accidentally left pouch

The police said that the “killer husband”, as they are terming him, packed her body inside a gunny bag and took it along with a chopper and an empty suitcase on his scooty to Nalasopara East.

“He stopped at a secluded place, dragged the gunny bag to a nearby drain and decapitated the body. Then he concealed the head in the suitcase and dumped the torso in the drain,” said a crime branch officer.

“Hipparagi then carried the suitcase on his scooty and dumped it into a thick bush near Virar phata,” Ranaware said.

After recovering the highly decomposed skull, the Mandvi police had registered an FIR and the police, led by senior inspector Sanjay Hajare, began to investigate. The crime branch too had started investigatng.

The killer’s mistake was to leave behind an empty jewellery pouch in the suitcase, and this helped our teams led by inspector Sahuraj Ranaware and API Suhas Kamble in solving “an absolute blind case”, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Avinash Ambure.

WB Police steps up

A contact number and address on the pouch led the police to outstation customers, of which one number was recently switched off in Nalasopara, said the police.

The local police station in Naihati, West Bengal, helped in getting the details of a female customer who would often visit the jewellery shop in her hometown, the police added.

Her relatives told the police she was to visit them in January but had been incommunicado for over two months.

The police traced the owner of the switched-off phone in Nalasopara, and his friend told them that he had recently purchased a scooter, registered in Vasai RTO.

The police found the scooter parked under a building in Nalasopara East, and located his flat with the help of local residents. 

The accused was arrested from his home on Friday, DCP Ambure told mid-day. He has been handed over to the Mandvi police for further investigation.

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