Representative image showing a crime scene.
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The search for a 28-year-old woman missing from Faridabad for two months has ended with a grim discovery and the arrest of her in-laws for her murder—a crime they allegedly tried to conceal with a bizarre, printed letter claiming she had eloped.
According to a report by The Indian Express, the family's suspicion had first been raised when all contact with the woman ceased on April 22. Their fears were amplified a month later, after the in-laws began a conspicuous campaign of distributing 'missing' posters—a move that was immediately followed by the arrival of the strange, printed letter.
While the letter had claimed that the woman had eloped with a lover, her famiy dismissed the document as fabrication, noting that it was not signed and that its timing was a clear and calculated attempt to feign concern over her disappearance.
The family's fears found credence after the discovery of a freshly covered pit outside the woman's in-laws' Faridabad home.
After repeated pleas from the woman’s family, Faridabad police launched a full investigation. On June 20, they excavated the pit and recovered a body, which the family identified as their daughter's. The father-in-law, who was arrested, then confessed to a chilling sequence of events.
According to police, the family had planned the murder. On the night of April 21, the woman was given sugarcane juice laced with sleeping pills. The father-in-law then raped her as she lay unconscious before strangling her with a dupatta.
Police said the victim’s sister-in-law acted as a lookout and later drafted the fake letter to mislead investigators, while the mother-in-law was also privy to the plan.
The motive, the father-in-law told police, was to avoid the "tag of divorce" and paying alimony. The mother-in-law and sister-in-law have since been arrested. The woman’s husband, however, remains absconding.