Twenty-six days after a 21-year-old woman went missing from Odisha's Keonjhar district, police on Sunday said they exhumed her remains from a forest after a man she was in a relationship with confessed to having murdered her.
Police said Sahaja Alda, 26, allegedly killed the woman suspecting she was in a relationship with another man.
Ashok Nayak, a local police officer, said the woman left home on May 11 without her mobile phone. When her family checked her phone records, they found she had received the last call from Alda.
Alda initially denied any knowledge of her whereabouts as the family approached the Keonjhar police superintendent seeking intervention over alleged police inaction, as the woman remained untraceable, and her mother lodged a complaint on May 14.
Police arrested Alda on Sunday after he confessed to killing the woman. Police said Alda led them to a pit inside the forest, around five km from the scene of her murder, where the remains were recovered.
The exhumation was conducted in the presence of a magistrate with forensic teams assisting.
Police said Alda grew suspicious of the 21-year-old's social media activity. On May 11, Alda allegedly called her to meet him near a football field, around half a kilometre from their village. Alda allegedly killed her by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck.
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