The Orissa police on Saturday arrested a 71-year-old retired Army doctor for allegedly murdering his 62-year-old wife and later chopping the body into 300 pieces.
The accused, Somanath Parida, while confessing that he had cut the body into pieces — denied the charge of murder and said his wife Ushashree had committed suicide by repeatedly hitting her head against the concrete floor of the house.
The body pieces were kept in 22 steel containers inside the house. The crime came to light when the son and daughter of Somanth, presently staying in Dubai, tried to talk to their mother over telephone for last several days but to no avail.
They suspected something amiss when their father even did not respond to their repeated calls.
The brother and sister duo then informed their maternal uncle Ranjan Samal, a resident of Cuttack, who on Saturday evening visited the doctor’s place at Nayapali. Ranjan found the house locked from inside and foul smell coming out of it.
When Somanth did answer to his repeated knocks at the door, Ranjan suspected something wrong and called the police.
“We have seized the body parts which were kept in containers. The accused had applied chemicals to the body parts,” ACP Sontosh Bala said.
The police, quoting family sources, said there was a history of marital abuse complaint against the doctor.
The police has seized a chopper, a saw, a pair of scissors and some bottles of chemicals from the house of the accused doctor.
Preliminary investigation suggested that Ushashree’s death might have occurred on June 3.
“Today, we conducted the post-mortem. The timing and nature of death would be known after the report is obtained,” Dr Achyuta Baliarsingh of SCB Medical College said.