Decade-old murder bears chilling resemblance to case

Exactly 11 years ago, a murder eerily similar to the Shraddha Walkar case had rocked the capital. Niranjani Pillai, a 27-year-old South African lawyer, was allegedly killed by her husband, Sumit Handa, on October 29, 2011.

- Rajshekhar Jha

New Delhi: A supposed video call with a male friend, suspicions of infidelity and constant fights had apparently provoked Handa into stabbing his wife in the abdomen, strangling her with the laptop charging cord and stashing her body in the bathroom of their flat in south Delhi's Pul Prahladpur.

Police said Handa then carried out a marathon internet search and relied on TV shows to chop the woman’s body into pieces and stuff them into a trolley bag and her belongings into another. He drove to Rai in Haryana, 70km from Delhi, to get rid of the incriminating trolley bags. He bought some petrol at a gas station, dragged the bags to a forest 200 metres away and then set them on fire. He returned home with some ashes in Pillai’s memory.