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Pressured by a woman for marriage, a married man allegedly killed her in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas and kept her body in a fridge for around eight months.
The decomposed body of the saree-clad woman, who was wearing jewellery and whose hands were tied along with a noose around her neck, was found on Friday inside the refrigerator in a house that was rented by the accused, Sanjay Patidar.
The victim, Pinky Prajapati, was likely murdered in June last year, the police said.
Patidar, a resident of Ujjain, is said to be in a live-in relationship with her for the last five years.
She was reportedly pressuring him for marriage, which allegedly led Patidar to kill her using his friend's help.
"The woman is in her 30s. We suspect she was killed in June 2024. After a foul smell started emanating, neighbours called the landlord who opened a portion of the house. The woman's body was found in the refrigerator, the shelves of which had been removed. He then alerted police," the news agency PTI quoted Dewas Superintendent of Police Puneet Gehlot as saying.
The house is owned by one Dhirendra Shrivastava, who lives in Indore, he said.
Mr Gehlot also said that Mr Shrivastava rented his house to Patidar in June 2023.
A year later, Patidar vacated the house but continued to keep his belongings in a study room and the master bedroom. He told Mr Shrivastava he would vacate this portion later, the senior cop added.
"Patidar used to visit the house once in a while. Recently, the current tenant asked the landlord to unlock this portion of the house. The landlord showed this portion of the house to the tenant but then locked it again, since Patidar's belongings were inside, and switched off the power supply on Wednesday," the PTI quoted another police official, Amit Solanki, as saying.
The incident came to light when the refrigerator stopped working after the electricity was switched off and a foul smell started coming from that portion of the house, Mr Solanki said.
The incident draws parallels to the sensational Shraddha Walkar murder case in Delhi.
Aaftab Amin Poonawala is accused of strangling Walkar, his live-in partner, and chopping her body into pieces in Delhi's Mehrauli in May 2022. He allegedly stuffed her body parts into a refrigerator before scattering those at multiple places in the national capital over several days to avoid detection.
He is lodged in a Delhi jail.