Representative image of a dead body.
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: The decomposed naked body of an unidentified young woman from Odisha was found in a flat in Chandapura on the city’s southern outskirts on Monday, police officers said.
The corpse was discovered in a fourth-floor flat at Head Master Layout around 2:30 pm. A strong pungent smell had drawn the landlord to the house. He checked into the flat and called the police.
The woman appeared to be in her early 20s and probably died about five days ago. Though the corpse was naked, there were no injury marks or scratches on it, an officer from the jurisdictional Surya Nagar police station told DH.
Police have opened a case under IPC sections dealing with murder, rape and causing the disappearance of evidence of an offence, or giving false information to screen the offender. The body has been sent for post-mortem.
The rape charge may be withdrawn if the post-mortem report doesn’t substantiate it.
Police are now looking for a man in his early 40s, who had introduced himself as the woman’s father while renting the flat about a month ago.
The landlord did not seek any documentation from his tenants. The landlord agreed to rent the flat on the recommendation of another man from Odisha, who lives in the same building. The tenant gave his name as Sapan Kumar and said they were from Odisha.
‘Father’ also missing
Curiously, the man who had referred the tenants has also gone missing. Both men have also switched off their phones. Police are trying to trace them, the officer said.
The flat was in a squalid condition when the police arrived. The floor was strewn with cigarette butts, the dishes in the kitchen hadn’t been cleaned in ages and everything else was covered in dust.
Neighbours saw the tenants from Odisha only once or twice. Nobody seemed to know when they came to the house and left. The man who referred them to the owner hardly came once or twice a month, police said, quoting the landlord.