Police in Etawah arrested a woman, Pooja, and her lover late on Sunday night for allegedly killing her 55-year-old father and concealing his body in a box inside a locked room in Kanshiram Colony, after neighbours alerted officers to a strong foul smell coming from the room.

Source: Times of India via DailyGraph

The smell was reported at around 3 p.m. on Sunday from room number 216, on the first floor of Block 14 in TB Hospital Colony. Civil Lines police broke open the lock and found the decomposed body of Shyam Sundar Katheriya, a security guard at Shubham Hotel, inside a box, wrapped in polythene and covered with three blankets.

Senior Superintendent of Police Brijesh Kumar Srivastava said the body appeared to be several days old. Suspicion fell on Pooja, who lived with her father, after she went missing; police later arrested her and her lover. According to police, Katheriya had opposed their relationship — the alleged motive is a police allegation and has not been tested in court.

Source: Opera News (Hindi report)

SP City Babita Singh said a police and forensic team was collecting evidence from the room. Investigators said, prima facie, the body appeared to have been placed in the box after the killing, and the cause of death would be established through the post-mortem examination.

Katheriya's eldest daughter, Kajal, who lives in Bhikhanpur in Auraiya district, told police she had last spoken to her father five days earlier and that his mobile phone was switched off when she called on Friday and Sunday, before neighbours informed her that his body had been found. She expressed suspicion about Pooja's role, an allegation police are investigating. Police said Katheriya had three daughters; their mother, Shashi Devi, has lived separately for about 10 years.