In a shocking development, the body of a woman was found stuffed in a blue drum on Wednesday in Patiala in Punjab. This discovery prompted police to launch a major investigation into a suspected murder.
The woman, who was identified due to tattoos on her body, was found near DCW over the bridge after police received an alert about a drum containing human remains.
“We immediately reached the spot for investigation. We called a forensic team to the site for a field examination. After that, the body was taken to the morgue for identification,” station house officer Gurpreet Singh said.
The SHO also added that two tattoos were discovered on the woman’s body, which helped in identifying her.
“After that, her identity was established and she was identified as Neha (20 years and above), daughter of Sant Lal,” Singh was quoted as saying by ANI.
The family belongs to Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, but currently lives in Patiala, police added.
Singh also told ANI that the girl’s family, who reported her missing to the police a few days ago, has been contacted and a missing persons report has also been filed.
A wave of murders on the blue drum
Earlier this month, a woman was arrested in Thane on charges of killing her lover and stuffing his body in a blue drum.
The agency reported that the woman killed the man with the help of her brother, then threw the blue drum into the drain.
In Lucknow, a 21-year-old BCom student allegedly shot his father, a liquor businessman and pathology lab owner, dead on the morning of February 20, cut the body into pieces and placed the remains in a blue drum at the family home.
As reported by HT, the crime arose out of an altercation after the father pressured his son to pursue India’s NEET pre-med exam, instead of B.com.
These murders took place almost a year after the shocking Meerut incident, which brought the term “blue drum murder” to the headlines of Indian newspapers.
In Meerut in UP, Saurabh Rajput, a merchant marine, was murdered by his wife, Muskaan Rastogi, and her lover, Sahil Shukla, in 2025. His body was dismembered and stuffed into a blue cylinder sealed with concrete.
