Nearly 2 weeks after recovery of woman's body, cops book absconding husband for her murder

Days after the highly-decomposed body of a woman was recovered from a chawl room at Ulhasnagar in Maharashtra’s Thane district, police have registered an offense of murder against her absconding husband and launched a search to nab him, an official said on Saturday.

Police said that the accused, Sahebrao Nikalje, allegedly strangulated to death his 45-year-old wife Sushila and later tried to burn her to hide her identity, he said. An offense was registered against him under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) at the Shivaji Nagar police station in Ambarnath on Friday night, the police official said.

”The woman’s body was recovered on August 22 from the room in a chawl, where she resided with her husband. The body was highly decomposed. During the investigation, the landlady told the police that the couple had come to stay there just a couple of weeks before the incident,” he said.

She told the police that on August 22, the residents detected foul smell emanating from the couple’s room. As there was no response from inside, the door was broken open after which the victim’s body was found covered under a blanket, he added.

The post-mortem revealed that the woman had died around eight days before. The report confirmed that the victim had been strangulated to death and her face was later burnt in a bid to hide her identity, the official said, adding that the motive behind the crime was not known yet.