Arrested Bhopal resident Udayan Das, who allegedly killed his live-in partner and entombed her body inside a concrete slab, has revealed during interrogation that he got the idea of wrapping up the dead body in plastic from famous American television series 'The X-Files', police claimed on Saturday.
Das, who is also accused of killing both his parents, confessed murdering his live-in partner Akansha Sharma on July 15, 2016.
"Das admitted that he murdered the girl and then wrapped up the body in plastic, the way he saw in 'X-Files' television series. He did so to stop the body from decomposing," Bankura Police Superintendent Sukhendu Hira told IANS over phone.
'The X-Files' is an American science fiction drama television series that revolves around two FBI special agents resolving marginalised, unsolved cases with paranormal phenomena.
Das earlier admitted that he committed the murder and entombed Sharma's body after drawing inspiration from an American crime film 'Devil's Knot'.
The officer also said Sharma's post-mortem report, that arrived from Bhopal on Saturday, clearly indicates she was killed by strangulation.
"We have received the post-mortem report from Bhopal that shows the girl was killed by strangulation. We will send the report to Forensic Science Laboratory on Sunday," he said.
Police said they have discovered morphed pictures of multiple women from Das' laptop and also have leads to believe that he was involved in multiple relationships.
"We recovered several morphed pictures of women and traced multiple fake social media accounts from his laptop. There is a chance that he had other relationships but that is not verified yet," the officer added.
Das was brought to the state from Bhopal on transit remand by the Bankura police and was remanded in police custody for eight days by the Bankura district court on February 7.
He was arrested on February 2 by the West Bengal Police on charges of murdering his live-in partner who hails from the district and entombing her body in a concrete block inside his house in Saketnagar in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Later, he also confessed to his parents' murder.
The Raipur Police say that over two hours of questioning, Udayan, who spoke fluent English, Hindi and Bengali, was calm and coherent as he spoke about his growing up years in Raipur. Udayan Das came to Raipur in 2001 as a Class 11 student. The family moved here after his mother Indrani Das, an employee of the MP government, was transferred to Raipur when Chhattisgarh was formed in 2000. She worked with the Chhattisgarh government’s statistics department while Udayan’s father, V K Das, had by then already retired from BHEL, where he had worked as a foreman. Indrani worked for another two years before she retired in 2003.
Investigators in Chhattisgarh say that while Udayan was a “sharp child”, his grades began to fall soon. “He told us that in Class 11, he got hooked onto social networking sites such as Orkut and got distracted,” says IGP, Raipur Range, Pradeep Gupta.
Udayan, who went to the well-known Holy Cross Byron Bazar school in Raipur, would go on to fail his Board exams, unable to clear his mathematics paper. “The next year, he passed the exams through open school,” says an investigator.
Udayan has told police that his academic failures drove a wedge between him and his parents. They wanted Udayan to be an engineer but he showed little interest in studying, spending most of his time at home on the Internet. A year after he cleared his board exams, his parents enrolled him for a computer science course, as a “management quota” student, at the Rungta College in Bhilai. But his grades did not pick up.
Udayan has told police that he went to college for the first three years but failed several examinations and dropped out in his fourth year. An official from Rungta College confirmed that Udayan studied there in the 2004-05 session. “He had several back papers and very poor attendance. He did not complete the course,” says the official.
Udayan reportedly forged his papers to show he had cleared the course. “He lied to his parents about finishing college and never got a job. His parents’ insistence that he get a job led to tension at home. When all that bickering and acrimony got too much, Udayan decided to kill them,” claims Raipur IGP Gupta, adding, “He planned it well.”
THE CASE SO FAR
Feb 3: Udayan Das (pic) arrested after he admitted to killing his live-in partner Akansha Sharma and burying her body under a marble platform at his Bhopal home. Sharma’s body dug out, identified by her brother
Feb 4: Das claims he killed his parents in 2012 and buried their bodies in the garden of the family’s house in Raipur
Feb 5: Two skeletons dug out from Das’s Raipur residence and sent for forensic analysis. Case of murder registered at the TT Nagar police station
Feb 6: Das brought to Bankura on transit remand from Bhopal, kept at Sadar Thana lock-up
Feb 7: Das remanded in 8-day police custody, charged under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC
