Investigation indicates that Bhuvaneswari was murdered, the police said.
Days after a charred corpse was found in a suitcase in Andhra Pradesh's Tirupati, the police have identified it as the body of a 27-year-old techie who worked for Cognizant in Hyderabad.
The woman, Bhuvaneswari, had been reported missing and her husband, Maramreddy Sreekanth Reddy, had claimed that she had died of Covid. He is now accused of killing her.
The couple was living in Tirupati with their 18-month-old daughter. Bhuvaneswari was working from home due to the pandemic.
Sreekanth Reddy, an engineer, was associated with an online organisation that fights corruption but he had been unemployed for some months.
Tirupati Urban police chief Ramesh Reddy said CCTV footage showed Sreekanth Reddy handling a big red suitcase into their apartment complex and then wheeling it out a while later.
"The body was 90 per cent burnt. Sreekanth bought a big suitcase at Reliance Mart and that is suspected to have been used for the purpose of packing the body. He later tried to burn the body," the police chief said.
The footage shows Sreekanth bringing in a suitcase into their home, holding his toddler-daughter and rolling the big suitcase with the other hand.
Later, he is seen struggling to hold the baby and also rolling out the suitcase, now apparently heavy.
The police have sent samples for forensic examination. Every part of the body was burnt except for some bones and the skull.
Sreekanth reportedly told relatives that his wife died of Covid. The relatives then visited several hospitals and morgues looking for her.
