Silchar: A man from Assam’s Cachar district and his wife were arrested from separate locations in Manipur’s Jiribam district in connection with the disappearance of a woman whose dismembered remains were allegedly found in a trolley bag on Chennai-New Delhi Tamil Nadu Express at Agra Cantonment railway station on Aug 5.The couple have been identified as Manik Uddin Laskar of Sonabarighat in Cachar’s Sonai area and Bhagabati Majhi alias Ayesha Begum, originally from Radhapur village in Odisha’s Kendujhar district. They had allegedly been hiding in Jiribam.The body parts were recovered after Tamil Nadu Express passengers reported a foul smell from a red trolley bag in the train’s rear unreserved coach at Agra Cantonment. Govt Railway Police personnel found decomposed, headless and dismembered human remains inside.The victim was later identified as Hidayath Nisha, also known as Hayath Nisha, (38) a native of Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district who worked for a private company in Chennai.CCTV footage from Chennai Central station showed a man and a woman carrying a similar trolley bag and boarding the Delhi-bound train around 10pm on Aug 3. Police suspect they later got off the train, leaving the bag behind.Special teams were formed and an investigation led police to a rented house on Mosque Street in Guduvanchery near Chennai, where the couple had allegedly been staying with Nisha. Police allegedly recovered more decomposed body parts from a cooking vessel.Police suspect she was killed and dismembered at the Guduvanchery house. A missing-person case had earlier been registered at Guduvanchery police station on a complaint filed by Nisha’s son.Further probe traced the couple to Jiribam. Following a request from Tamil Nadu Police, Jiribam police deployed local sources to trace the couple. A team led by ASI S Suraj Singh arrested Manik on the inter-village road connecting Lalpani and Rasidpur at 10.45pm on Friday. Bhagabati was arrested from Kashimpur village around 11.30am on Saturday in a joint operation by Jiribam police and Tamil Nadu Police.The operation was conducted under the command of Jiribam police station officer-in charge Thingujam Tikendra Singh and additional SP (law and order) Th Kamaljit Singh, under the supervision of Jiribam SP Prakhar Pandey.The couple was handed over to Guduvanchery Police for further investigation and legal formalities. Police have not disclosed details of the woman’s disappearance or the specific allegations against the two.
