A week after a woman’s body was found near Okhla Tank which was cut into seven pieces, police have arrested her 26-year-old husband Sajid Ali Ansari, an unemployed engineer, and his two brothers Mohd. Ishteyaq Alam Ansari, 28, and Mohd Hasmat Ali Ansari, 46 for the murder.

They wrapped up the body meticulously and dumped it on an empty plot in south-east Delhi’s Sarita Vihar area on Thursday, June 21st, 2018.

He and his two elder brothers were detained on Monday, June 25th, 2018 night and arrested on Tuesday, June 26th, 2018 for allegedly helping Sajid Ali Ansari to remove the evidence.

The police claimed to have traced the accused after they found the name of a company on the carton in which the body was found.

The woman, a native of Bihar, had fallen in love with Ansari while they were studying in Kurukshetra and married him against the wishes of her family. Cops found the torso and a leg stuffed into a carton, while the rest of the body was in a plastic bag and sacks.

On Thursday, June 21st, 2018, the police received a call about a carton and a black coloured bag lying in a vacant plot. When they opened the carton, they found a woman’s dismembered body with her face disfigured.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Chinmoy Biswal said “The first step was to identify her. Teams worked to trace the clothes she was wearing, calls of husband-wife clash from nearby police station were scanned, and missing records were also checked, but no leads were found.”

Cops also scanned through 90 PCR calls about disputes between couples to find out whether the woman was a victim of one such argument. The first breakthrough came from a tag on the carton that contained the address of a courier company based in Gurgaon.

When a police team went to the address in Shaheen Bagh, it was found that Ansari had vacated the house in a hurry and left the keys with a neighbour. When cops broke open the door of the apartment, they found the woman’s blood-stained clothes and some clues about Ansari. He was traced to his brother’s house nearby. During interrogation, Ansari told police that he had bought a cleaver a few days before the incident. He had decided to kill his wife the next time she got into an argument with him.

On June 21, he purposely struck a conversation that led to an argument during which he strangled her with his hands. He then called Ishteyaque and asked him to help dispose of the body.

A case of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 has been registered against Sajid, while Hasmat and Ishteyaque have been booked under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for destroying evidence.