Kochi: The mystery behind murder of a middle-aged woman at Thoppumpady was unraveled on Wednesday when shadow police arrested her paramour- a 27-year-old bus conductor with whom she was allegedly having an extra-marital affair for over two years.
Anwar, a resident of Parapel House, Pattupurackal, Kakkanad, was arrested from his sister’s house in Palluruthy at 3 pm after a probe based on the victim’s mobile phone call records and a car that was seen in suspicious circumstances at the place of crime on Monday evening.
The 36-year-old Sandhya Ajith, who lives along with her family at a rented house near Amaravati in Fort Kochi, was smothered to death and her body left at the lorry parking area near Thoppumpaddy BOT bridge. She last called her husband on Monday evening while returning from her workplace in Cherthala. There was no information about her thereafter and her phone was found switched off. Her body was finally found by a group of joggers from under a tempo on Tuesday morning.
According to the police, Sandhya used to travel to Cherthala in the private bus in which Anwar was working as a conductor. “Anwar said the duo was in a relationship for the last 2.5 years. On Monday he picked her up in a car owned by his friend from Cherthala and proceeded to Thoppumpaddy as per a plan to kill her. This after the victim compelled him to marry her,” Fort Kochi CI Manoj Kumar said.
The accused admitted during interrogation that they reached the Thoppumpaddy bridge around 9 pm and stationed the car between lorries at the parking yard. He then choked her to death and left the body under the tyre of one of the lorries there.
“A traffic warden had informed she saw a white car in which a woman having resemblance to the one found dead was travelling with a young man on Monday evening. These leads led us to him and the car was also recovered,” the officer said.
Sandhya had two children and worked as an accountant with a private institution in Cherthala.
