INDORE: A tenant’s frustration over high electricity bills led to the discovery of a chilling six-month-old murder in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas.
A woman’s decomposed body was discovered in a refrigerator locked inside a rented room in a two-storey house in Vrindavan Dham.
The house is owned by businessman Dhirendra Shrivastava, who is in Dubai for the past six months.
The ground floor has a room, kitchen, and toilet to the right, and two bedrooms and a hall on the left, both sides separated by a staircase leading to the upper floor that is retained by Shrivastava.
The murder came to light on after Balveer Rajput, who rented the ground floor of the two-storey house in Vrindavan Dham, decided to break open a locked room left unused by the previous tenant, Sanjay Patidar.
Balveer, who rented the property in July 2024, repeatedly asked the landlord to be allowed to use the other rooms for his family, which includes his wife and two children, aged 10 and 11. The owner, who was in Dubai, eventually permitted him to open the rooms.
On Thursday, Balveer broke the lock and found the refrigerator running. Irritated by the previous tenant’s “carelessness” and believing that he finally found the reason for his inordinately high electricity bills, he switched it off and thought he would clear out the rest of the stuff in the morning.
By the Friday morning, a foul smell covered the area. When neighbours alerted the police, they opened the refrigerator to find the rotten body of Pinky alias Pratibha Prajapati, Patidar’s live-in partner, wrapped in a bedsheet.
Patidar, who rented the house until June 2024, vacated the premises but left two rooms locked, claiming he would return to collect his belongings. Among the items left behind was the refrigerator that concealed the body.
Police said Pratibha was killed in March 2024. Patidar strangled her during an argument over her insistence on marriage, despite knowing he was already married with children. He, along with his friend Vinod Dave, stuffed her body into the refrigerator, turned it to its coldest setting, and locked the room before fleeing.
“The victim was living with Patidar for over five years, but their relationship soured. He confessed to the crime after being arrested on Friday,” said ASP Jaiveer Bhadoria.
Police arrested Patidar hours after the body was found and are coordinating with Rajasthan authorities to question his alleged accomplice, Vinod Dave, who is currently jailed in Tonk for another crime.
Forensic experts gathered evidence from the scene, and a postmortem examination was conducted to determine the cause and time of death.
