The smell gave it away. Two days after a man was strangled in a village house in Rae Bareli district, neighbours noticed a stench coming from the property and went to the village head, Akhilesh Yadav. He called the police.
What officers found, on Friday night, was the decomposed body of 26-year-old Amit Raidas, buried under the earthen floor of a room. Whoever put him there had covered the spot with bricks and plastered over it. The house is in Pure Rajau Majre village, inside Dalmau police station limits and about 30 km from the district headquarters, the Times of India reported.
The record so far
Police say Raidas was strangled by Ram Prakash Paswan, 31, a labourer and the husband of the woman Raidas was living with. Hindustan Times and the Times of India both name the woman as Rita Paswan, 29.
Circle officer Giriraj Shankar Tripathi of Dalmau laid out the background. Rita married Ram Prakash in 2016, and they have two sons, aged eight and seven. After what he called prolonged marital discord she moved back to her parental home in 2020. There, police say, she began a relationship with a neighbour, Amit. The two have a three-year-old daughter.
On the night of July 29, according to police, Ram Prakash came to visit and found Amit with her. The two men argued. Ram Prakash is accused of strangling Amit, then running.
Rae Bareli SP Ravi Kumar quoted Rita’s statement to investigators. She said her husband sometimes visited her, and that she stayed quiet afterward out of fear. In his words, she believed her husband “might also kill her” and was worried about the future of her three-year-old daughter.
Where the case stands
Police excavated the room after Rita gave them information during questioning. The body went for post-mortem to establish the exact cause and time of death.
Dalmau station house officer Raghavan Kumar Singh said a case has been registered against both Rita Paswan and Ram Prakash Paswan, on a complaint from Amit’s brother. Rita has been detained and is being questioned. Ram Prakash is absconding, and police teams have been formed to trace and arrest him.
Sources
- Man killed over extramarital affair, buried under house floor in Rae Bareli | Hindustan Times
- UP man kills wife's lover, buries body beneath house floor; foul smell exposes crime | Lucknow News – The Times of India
