Police arrested a 40-year-old woman on Friday for allegedly killing her husband, burying his body under the bathroom floor of their house in Agra, and continuing to live there as if nothing had happened.
A body was found under newly laid bathroom tiles
The heinous crime came to light when inconsistencies in a missing person’s report, and suspicious ATM withdrawals, led police to search the family home in Renuka Dham Colony in Dehtora locality. Under a set of freshly laid bathroom tiles, cops found the decomposed remains of the victim, Surendra Sharma, 44.
According to police, Surendra Sharma was unemployed and suffering from alcoholism. He repeatedly assaulted his wife Ruby Sharma over demanding money to fund his drinking habit. The couple, who have been married for 16 years, have two daughters and are financially dependent on Surendra’s late father’s pension, which was shared between Surendra and his brother Anil Sharma.
“Surendra Sharma was murdered on May 18. Eight days later, his wife Ruby Sharma filed a complaint stating that her husband was missing,” Agra Police Commissioner Syed Ali Abbas said.
“The bathroom floor was dug up and the remains of Surendra Sharma’s body were found and sent for post-mortem examination. Ruby Sharma has been taken into custody and is being interrogated to find out the aspects related to the crime and find out if anyone else was also involved,” he said.
How the alleged murder was carried out
Police investigations revealed that on May 18, Ruby was apparently pushed to the brink by abuse, with Ruby allegedly lacing a bowl of ‘kheer’ (sweet rice pudding) with an overdose of sleeping pills.
The couple’s daughters were not aware of the crime, and did not suspect anything had happened when they saw their father lying lifeless on the bed, as they were accustomed to him sleeping late after drinking. The next morning, Ruby dropped her daughters off at their uncle Anil’s house and returned home alone to dispose of the body.
Upon her return to the residence, Ruby allegedly dug up the bathroom floor, buried her husband’s body and plastered the area. She then placed new tiles on the roof to remove any evidence of the crime.
For several days, she continued to live a normal life, using the same bathroom and pretending to wait for her husband to return. Eight days after the murder, she went to Sikandra Police Station to file a formal complaint about her disappearance.
The cover-up began to unfold thanks to the vigilance of the victim’s brother. Surendra kept the ATM card linked to the bank account into which their father’s pension was deposited. When Anil Sharma noticed that cash was still being withdrawn from the account despite his brother’s alleged disappearance, he immediately alerted the authorities.
“It seems that the task of killing the man and burying the body in the same house is a difficult task for a woman alone,” Abbas said. “At the moment, we are still looking for links with anyone other than the woman involved in the crime.”
