Bengaluru: The 30-year-old man, who ended his life in Odisha on Wednesday while police were looking for him in connection with the murder of a Bengaluru woman, has stated in his suicide note that he killed her as she was pressuring him to marry her. According to him, Mahalakshmi, whose body was cut into 59 pieces and stuffed in a fridge in her house, had been harassing him in many ways.
Mahalakshmi’s body was found in her Vyalikaval residence on Sept 21.Police were on hot trail of her friend, Mukti Ranjan Ray, who was found hanging from a tree in the forest close to his residence in Kuleipada village of Bhadrak district, Odisha, on Wednesday.
“Many times, she had physically assaulted me for not agreeing to the marriage. Also, she was restricting my activities like mingling with friends. I was agitated and tired of her atrocities. So I killed her,” police said, quoting from Ray’s death note found in his diary. Circumstantial evidence indicates that Ray was in Mahalakshmi’s house on the intervening night of Sept 2 and 3.
A laptop, a diary, and a motorbike (belonging to Ray’s younger brother) were found near the crime scene.
Further, family sources told police that they were looking for a match for Ray and were trying to finalise his marriage by December. “Probably, Ray was facing pressure from the family to marry the girl of their choice and from Mahalakshmi, forcing him to marry. None of the family, including his younger brother, was aware of the relationship between Ray and Mahalakshmi,” a police officer said.
Once Odisha police complete their investigation, Bengaluru police will get a copy of the suicide note and the laptop. “The laptop has many pictures and a few videos of Ray and Mahalakshmi,” police said.
Meanwhile, city police said they will soon finish their investigation and file an ‘abated chargesheet’ which is filed when the accused dies or becomes incommunicado. “We hope to find the knife Ray used in the crime,” an investigating officer said.
The two were working in a cloth shop inside a mall in Malleswaram and were in a relationship for over six months.
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He wanted to get rid of body parts after 2-3 months, says brother
Debabrata.Mohapatra
Bhubaneswar: Mukti Ranjan Ray had reportedly planned to dispose of Mahalakshmi’s body parts after 2-3 months, claimed his younger brother Satya.
“My brother came to me in Berhampur where I am studying and told me everything. After strangling the woman to death at her home, he had planned to hang the body to make it look like a case of suicide. When his plan didn’t work out, he chopped her into pieces and stuffed the dismembered body parts in the refrigerator,” said Satya, an engineering student.
“My brother said the woman had been demanding money from him. She was also torturing him. Recently, the two of them had gone to Kerala where they had an altercation, following which she told police that my brother had kidnapped her. My brother was beaten up by police. They released him later,” Satya said.
He claimed that his brother wanted to get rid of Mahalakshmi because of her alleged misconduct and her habit of frequently asking for money and jewellery.
“My brother told me that he strangled her to death following a scuffle on Sept 3,” Satya said.
Satya, whose statement was recorded by Bengaluru police, said his brother ended his life out of guilt. “He had slipped into depression after killing her brutally. He told me that he was not in his senses when he killed her and later chopped her body into pieces,” he added.