A tailor’s tag on a blood-stained shirt, a trouser recovered from the crime scene, and an e-wallet payment made over a thousand kilometres away helped police in Cuttack crack a murder case and zero in on the accused within 30 hours of the crime.
On Friday, police found a woman’s body and the weapon – a chapad knife – used to hack her to death on the banks of the Kathajodi river on the outskirts of Cuttack. On Saturday evening, the key suspect was detained from a moving train, and after his interrogation, the case was cracked and two others were arrested on Sunday, police said.
When the body was first found, there were no clues regarding the identity of the victim other than the tattoos on both her hands as her face was mutilated.
Soon after, multiple teams were formed to parse through footage from CCTV cameras in the area and to check missing persons entries filed at different police stations. With these efforts not producing any tangible results, police started enquiring with people in nearby villages and even publicised images of the tattoos to ascertain the identity of the woman.
It was during these searches that investigators got their big clue – a shirt and a pair of trousers with paper tags that said “New Star Tailors” with the serial number 3833 stitched on both.
Along with these efforts, police continued to search the surroundings of the place where they found the body. It was during these searches that investigators got their big clue – a shirt and a pair of trousers with paper tags that said “New Star Tailors” with the serial number 3833 stitched on both.
Cuttack Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Jagmohan Meena told The Indian Express, “Around 10 tailors with this name or similar names were verified in Odisha and their tag design was compared with the tag found at the spot. No match was found. Since we had widely publicised the case, we later got a WhatsApp message from one unknown person that such a shop exists in the Bhanjanagar area of Ganjam district.” However, when police located that shop and looked at the tag it uses, it didn’t match with the ones found at the crime scene.
“But the tailor at the shop gave an important clue. He said that such paper tags are used in Gujarat… He could say this with confidence because he had worked in various places in Gujarat as a tailor,” Meena said.
The Cuttack police then approached the Gujarat Police, who helped in identifying the different shops named “New Star Tailors”. They focused on Surat, where a large number of people from Odisha work.
“After verification of around seven-eight shops, a shop was found that had a matching paper tag design. Then, the serial number 3833 was used to find the entry about the customer. But only a nickname, ‘Babu’, was mentioned in the entry and there was nothing else,” the Cuttack DCP said.
However, the tailor at the shop said he had to return Rs 100 to the customer who identified himself as Babu, and that he did this through an online transaction to an e-wallet linked with a mobile number.
“When we called that number, it was found that it belonged to a friend of Babu’s. From this friend, we learnt that Babu’s real name is Jaganath Duhuri, a 27-year-old resident of Bhitara Sobala, under Mahakalapada police station in Odisha’s Kendrapara district,” said Meena.
Police Commissioner S Dev Datta Singh said investigators also got his phone number and traced it first to Andhra Pradesh and then saw that the location kept changing. Eventually, investigators mapped these locations on a railway line and came to the conclusion that the accused was on a moving train.
“As we further refined the details and matched the timing, we confirmed that the train from Odisha goes through Andhra before entering Odisha again at Rayagada,” said Singh.
On Saturday, Rayagad police officers in plain clothes boarded the train and conducted a search while it was moving. In a one-hour search between Rayagad and Muniguda stations, they found the suspect, the commissioner said.
Upon interrogation, police learnt that Jaganath Duhuri, the accused, was the brother-in-law of the victim and that he allegedly committed the crime with his brother Balaram Duhuri and cousin Hapi Duhuri. The police have arrested all three persons.
The deceased is Balaram’s wife and they have a 2-year-old daughter, police said.
The DCP said the crime was the result of a continuing marital dispute, with Balaram doubting his wife of having had an extra marital affair.
According to the DCP, the accused procured the murder weapon from Gujarat, and lured the victim to an isolated place to carry out the crime.
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