How a mosquito net led Mumbai police to man who dumped wife’s body on a local train – The Indian Express

With no clues about her identity, the police began tracing when the gunny bag was brought into the compartment on the early morning train and who had dumped it. Some of the regular passengers told the police that they had noticed that the bag was definitely on the train before Vasai Road railway station, on the outskirts of Mumbai’s northern suburbs.

While the police began looking for missing persons reported in suburbs beyond Vasai Road initially, one clue came from within the gunny bag. Among the clothes and the body was a mosquito net.

The Government Railway Police said that the net did not seem to have been manufactured in the city. Inquiries revealed that it was a net manufactured in parts of West Bengal and was commonly seen to be used by labourers from the state and the neighbouring country of Bangladesh.

With this clue, the police carried the victim’s photograph and visited suburbs beyond Vasai Road in areas where labourers from West Bengal lived. The police found their breakthrough in Nalla Sopara where some people identified the woman.

Neighbours reported that Laiza Khan, a 30-year-old woman, had not been seen over the past few days. Through intelligence and surveillance, including CCTV footage, the police tracked her husband, Lotan, and cracked the case.

According to the police, Lotan, allegedly a Bangladeshi national, had strangulated his wife after an argument. Panicking after the incident, he stuffed the body in a gunny bag along with old clothes and left it on the local train before fleeing. The police also arrested two of his relatives, claiming they were accomplices.

The police later also alleged that Lotan had committed the murder of his eight-year-old sister-in-law, who had witnessed his wife’s murder, and dumped her body in another suburb.