31 July 2019
At 5 am, farmer Muniraju left for work walking on the road near Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport. While walking, suddenly his eyes fell on the dead body of a woman lying on the shore. When I got closer the scene was heartbreaking. The head of the corpse was brutally crushed, leaving the brain in pieces. The body was soaked in blood. There were many cuts from sharp weapons, while the palms were also slashed.
Muniraju, a farmer, called the Bengaluru police and reported that a woman's body had been found. Seeing the branded clothes on the body, the police guessed that the woman belonged to a well-to-do family. Some bricks were found near the body, with bloodstains on them which clearly indicated that his head must have been smashed with them. Since it was impossible to identify the dead body, the police started an investigation based on the clothes of the dead body.
The mystery of this death remained very confusing for the police, as even after several attempts they could not find any evidence. However, due to a coincidence and the cleverness of the police, every thread of the murder case was unraveled.
Today, read the story of Kolkata model Pooja Singh Dey's murder case in 4 chapters of an untold story-
A team of 20 policemen was formed for this high profile murder. At the scene of the incident, the forensic team found that there were tire marks of the car where the body was found. After scanning the surrounding CCTV footage, a white Swift car was seen passing by. However, the number plate of that car was not clearly visible in any of the footage.
The next angle of investigation was the clothes found on the body. The deceased woman was wearing branded jeans, a T-shirt and an expensive Titan watch. Generally, the buyer is identified through the billing of the branded items.
More than 14 thousand people were questioned for identification It has been revealed that 14 thousand such jeans have been sold across the country. The number of buyers was calculated based on billing. Based on the size, this number becomes 800. A WhatsApp group was created with everyone's number, where pictures of the dead body were sent, but the result was not forthcoming.
After jeans, details of Titan watch buyers were extracted based on its model. Most of the 1400 buyers were number switched off. Everyone was called, groups were formed, photos were sent, but no one came forward to buy the watch.
The postmortem report revealed that the woman was stabbed 22 times, causing her death. He was hit on the head with a heavy weapon, then crushed. During the post-mortem, the team noticed a tattoo of the letter 'S' on the body. Now the police interrogated people named S who bought branded watches and jeans, but this ploy didn't work either.
The body was found near the airport, so the police speculated that either the woman had traveled here or left here, but during the investigation, no passenger was found who had missed the flight that day.
Police were trying to identify the unidentified body when an informant reported that the woman had been killed by her husband. This man from North India killed his wife and dumped her body near the airport. When the police went to North India on the basis of an informer and arrested the man, he confessed to the crime of killing his wife. He left with the police when he was asked to go to the crime scene and repeat the crime scene, but he took the police to a new location. The spot was a short distance from where the unidentified body was found. The police were surprised by this. When the nearest police station was contacted, it was found that a body had actually been recovered from the spot a few days back. The murder was solved, but the police were still unable to find anything about the unidentified body.
Identification of a dead body found incidentally Normally any dead body is kept in the mortuary for 2-3 days, but this could not be done in this case. Even though 10 days have passed since the body was found, the police have no evidence. A month before this case, Bengaluru Police Inspector B. Ramamurthy's team arrested the thief Karthik from Kolkata. Gold worth 50 lakhs was recovered from him. The Kolkata Police wanted the Bengaluru Police to hand over the remand of the thief to the Kolkata Police. In this regard, the Kolkata Police made several calls to Inspector Ramamurthy in the last one month, but he could not receive any call due to his busyness in killing the unidentified body.
In August 2019, a call was made to Inspector Ramamurthy of Bengaluru from the New Model Town Police Station in Kolkata. That day he received the call in desperation. The two first talked about the issue, then Inspector Ramamurthy gave the calling constable a valid reason for not picking up the call. He said that for the past 10 days he has been busy recovering the body of a woman whose identity could not be ascertained. Don't call them for a few days. When the matter came to light, he expressed frustration about not being able to solve the case and started telling all the details.
On hearing the details, the Kolkata police constable told Ramamurthy that a missing complaint had been lodged in his police station a few days back, in which a man named Sandeep Dey had stated that his wife had gone to Bengaluru a few days back, from where she had gone missing. This accidental conversation turned out to be the first important link in the case.
The first letter of the name of complainant Sandeep Dey is S. This tattoo was done on a dead body. The Bengaluru police sent the photos of the body directly to the Kolkata police. Sandeep Dey, a resident of Kolkata, recognized his wife from the clothes in the photograph.
Sandeep Dey identified the body and said that his wife's name is Pooja Singh Dey, a model. She went to Bengaluru for an event some time back and has been missing ever since.
When Inspector Ramamurthy was about to go to Kolkata, a person named Ali, a resident of Delhi, contacted the Bengaluru police. Ali told the police that the Titan watch whose pictures were being sent on WhatsApp had been given to his girlfriend some time back. He said his girlfriend's name is Pooja Dey. He confirmed Pooja's identity through photographs. As soon as the body was identified, the police called Ali from Delhi and Pooja's husband Sandeep from Kolkata and their family to Bengaluru for questioning.
According to Pooja's husband Sandeep Dey's statement, they got married 7 years ago, though they had no children. Pooja was a model and also worked in event management for some time. Pooja used to go to Bangalore and Delhi frequently for work. Sandeep Dey said that he was unaware of the relationship between Pooja and Ali.
When Pooja's family members were questioned, it was found that their married life was not going well. Pooja and Sandeep had frequent disagreements. After the statement of the family, the police kept Sandeep under suspicion. It was possible that Sandeep got information about the relationship between Pooja and Ali, which led him to kill his wife in a fit of rage or get someone else to do it.
Pooja's boyfriend Ali told police during interrogation that he met Pooja during an event. Both started liking each other while working together. He also knew that Pooja was married, but that did not make any difference in their relationship. The police also suspected Ali, but he was cleared of suspicion by saying that he had approached the police himself. Why would he come forward himself if he was a murderer?
Checked into the hotel the day before the death The police started collecting evidence against Sandeep Dey. Also, inquiries were initiated from Pooja's mobile number to the places she had visited before her death. It has come to light that Pooja reached Bengaluru by flight from Kolkata on 29 July 2019. From the airport, she booked a cab through the app, through which she reached Sahara Pavilion Hotel in Singasandra.
The police reached the hotel and saw the CCTV footage, in which Pooja was seen checking-in on July 29. The hotel staff told him that Pooja had come to the hotel alone. On July 30, she went to a meeting and returned after booking a cab online. He checked out of the hotel at around 3.50 am on July 30-31 midnight. She left for the airport in the same cab in which she arrived in the afternoon.
When the police searched the online cab booking app to confirm the information from the hotel, it did not find any late night bookings. In such a situation, the police suspected the cab driver. The police got complete information about that cab and the cab driver through the CCTV footage of the hotel.
Police arrested the cab driver from his house on August 23, 23 days after Pooja's body was found. The cab driver was identified as 22-year-old Nagesh. Nagesh confessed to killing Pooja against the strictness of the police.
The cab driver came late at night to pick up Pooja According to Nagesh's confession, on July 30 afternoon, Pooja had booked a cab through an online app. He took them to meetings and brought them back. Pooja tells him that she has to go to the airport late at night, for which she will book a cab at night. Nagesh told him to pay him 1200 rupees directly instead of booking online, he will come at the same time. Pooja begrudgingly obeys him. He arrives at the appointed time to pick up Pooja from the hotel. This was the reason why no Pooja bookings were visible when searching the app.
Nagesh said Pooja's outfit made her look like she belonged to a rich family. Seeing him, Nagesh made up his mind to rob him. Nagesh bought a car on loan, but his car EMI bounced due to lack of money. He was in dire need of money. In such a situation, he decided to rob Pooja as soon as he saw her.
He left the hotel for the airport. It was late at night, due to which Pooja Singh Dey was sleeping. The road was long. As soon as Pooja fell into a deep sleep, Nagesh stopped the car seeing the unknown road. He first hit the sleeping Pooja on the head with an iron rod. Nagesh thought that Pooja had fainted. started looting their belongings, during which Pooja regained consciousness. As soon as Pooja started screaming loudly in defense, Nagesh started stabbing her several times with a knife, first on her waist and then on her stomach. Pooja died on the spot due to bleeding. Nagesh ran away with the luggage.
Pooja died minutes before farmer Muniraju saw her body at 5 am. Nagesh withdrew the money from Pooja's e-wallet and gifted these items to his sister.
Nagesh did not get bail for 2 years in this case. After 2 years, on March 15, 2021, the police filed a charge sheet in the case. His trial was scheduled to begin in September, but he died of food poisoning in prison in September 2021.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
