Video Editors: Mohd Irshad Alam, Pawan Kumar
This video is the first part of The Quint's new series 'Unidentified', wherein we revisit six brutal cases of crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh that still remain unsolved. Ground investigations such as this require time and resources. Support us – and empower our journalism.
(Trigger Warning: This story has details of murder and violence. Viewer discretion is advised)
In the early hours of 1 May 2018, the owner of a farmland in the Sikandrabad locality of Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr recovered the decapitated body of a woman, dumped near a neem tree, and alerted the local police.
The headless body was burnt with acid, possibly to hide her identity. The police recovered the body, sent it for examination and started a combing operation to locate the missing head.
A woman's body was found. The head was missing. The body was dumped under the neem tree. And burnt with acid. She was very brutally killed, her head severed. But the head was missing.Shahzad, Resident, Sikandrabad
Medical examination revealed that the woman was eight months pregnant. But within a year, police ended the probe and submitted final probe.
That was almost three years ago... With the head still missing, the woman remains unidentified. Till date no one knows who she was and where she came from. The police have neither been able to identify the victim, nor trace the killer.
In 2022, another similar case came to light in Meerut when a dismembered and headless body of a woman was found.
Severing Head, Dumping the Body Becoming a Pattern?
The dismembered body of a woman was found abandoned in a field at the Kotwali Dehat area of Bulandshahr. The head and hands of the victim who was, in all likelihood, in her twenties, were missing.
When the local residents spotted the body, they alerted the police who began combing operation in the area to locate the missing head and hands.
But three years later, the police are yet to solve the case. They haven't been able to locate the missing head or ascertain the woman's identity. Police say they are still probing the case and thoroughly examining the clues in the case. And are making all attempts of solving the case.
To escape the law, they (killers) either chop the head or dump the body very far away, so that the victims can't be identified. If victims can't be identified, the cases can't be solved and the killers escape unpunished.Sudhir Kumar Retd. DSP, UP Police
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