Kathmandu, April 4

It was the seventh day of nationwide lockdown last Monday on March 30, when some locals near the Hanumante River at Gatthaghar, Bhaktapur, called police and informed about the body stuffed inside a jute sack dumped on the river bank.

Police upon reaching the site, at around 3:00pm recovered a headless body of a woman in her early 30s. Photos acquired by THT shows that her left hand was chopped off and there was a deep cut in the hip.

The body stuffed in a jute sack was pulled by the police personnel from the muddy river, which according to police was thrown there at least a couple of days before it was discovered. The woman’s blue leggings was pulled below her hips and her red top had covered her headless body when the police pulled out the body.

People living in the squatter settlement had called the police after they some part of the body from the torn sack after stray dogs started feeding on it.

A large number of police personnel were deployed in the area that day to search for the missing head of the body. But, they have not been able to establish identity of the woman yet. Difficulty in establishing the identity of the body has complicated the investigation process, according to police.

Superintendent of Police Sabin Pradhan, head of Metropolitan Police Range, Bhaktapur, said, “We are still not sure about the place where the crime occurred.

We think it didn’t take place around the area from where the body was recovered.”

Bhaktapur police have notified all police units throughout the country to inform it about any missing complaint of a woman in her early 30s. “But, so far we came to know about such missing persons from two families in separate districts. But, both the families have said the body doesn’t belong to their family,” SP Pradhan said.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 05, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.