Police said a manhunt is on to arrest the prime suspect
An 80-year-old woman's body was found stuffed inside a cupboard in her neighbour's apartment in the same building in the outskirts of Bengaluru yesterday.
Police said preliminary investigation has revealed that the victim, identified as Parvathamma, was murdered.
A manhunt has been launched for the prime suspect, a 26-year-old woman named Paval Khan. "We have received information about the suspect and will be arresting her very soon," a police official told NDTV.
Paval, according to the police, was from West Bengal and was working in a garments factory in Karnataka.
Police said Parvathamma was living with her son Ramesh and daughter-in-law Jyothi on the second floor of a building in Anekal near Bengaluru.
The victim had reportedly left home last Saturday evening, saying that she was stepping out to buy beetle leaf. Thereafter, she could not be traced by her family.
Ramesh said that according to his wife, their neighbour Paval, a resident at a rented apartment on the third floor of the same building, had invited Paravathamma to her home on several occasions in the past.
"My wife had heard my mother speak to Paval around 5.30pm on the day she disappeared. Initially, we did not suspect the woman because she had often visited us at our home in the past," said Ramesh.
However, later on, suspecting that Paval could have had a role in Paravathamma's disappearance, Ramesh and Jyothi walked up to check the apartment on the third floor, but found it locked from outside.
Thereafter, Ramesh lodged a missing person's complaint with the police. Yesterday, Ramesh once again went to Paval's apartment, but it was still locked from outside.
He then informed the police, who arrived at the spot and started scouring Paval's apartment for clues. During the search operation, Parvathamma's body was found stuffed inside a cupboard, with the limbs tied. Access to the cupboard was blocked by placing a bed against it.
The jewellery on Parvathamma were all missing when her body was found, her son said.
"We unlocked the bedroom and found the cupboard blocked by a bed. When we finally managed to open it, we found my mother's saree in it, though all her jewellery, weighing around 80 grammes, were missing," added Ramesh.