A week after the headless body of a woman was found floating in a drain in Noida’s Sector 82, a 34-year-old man who was allegedly in a relationship with her was arrested on Friday for her murder, police said. The accused, identified as Monu Solanki, a bus driver, allegedly dismembered the body to hide her identity, and dumped the remains in two drains in Noida and Ghaziabad. During interrogation, he allegedly told police that their relationship became strained because the woman forced him to marry her. But he was unable to do so because he was married with three children, he told police.
Officers said the woman’s body was found with her hands and head cut off and her face mutilated on November 6. There were no identifying marks on it. The only evidence was a silver anklet on his leg, police said.
What followed was a multi-area search involving nine police teams, scanning more than 5,000 surveillance cameras, and tracking about 1,100 vehicles, officers added.
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“We found the headless body of a woman floating in the Sector 39 Nala… All identity marks have been removed from her body,” DCP (Noida) Yamuna Prasad said, adding: “We have deployed nine teams to investigate the matter. Each team has been assigned separate tasks like checking CCTV footage, monitoring entry and exit points, and tracking the movement of suspicious vehicles.”
Investigators said they distributed a photo of the victim’s leg along with details of her approximate height, 5 feet 4 inches, to police stations across Delhi, National Capital Region and adjoining areas. “Around 40 teams have been sent to different areas of Delhi and adjoining areas to analyze missing person reports. District Crime Records Bureau records have also been examined,” the DCP said.
While checking 1,100 vehicles, the police shortlisted 44 vehicles where the movement appeared suspicious. The police then interrogated the owners and drivers of these vehicles. Among them was also a private white and blue bus that crossed the area on the night of the accident with its headlights off. The car had a UP number plate.
Surveillance teams then tracked the bus to Barola in Noida, where residents told officers that a woman named Preeti Yadav, also known as Preeti Devi, had been missing for “five to six days” and was in repeated conflict with the bus driver (Monu Solanki).
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On Friday, a police team from Sector 39 arrested Solanki, who hails from Etah state and currently lives in Barola.
On interrogation, the officers said they recovered the murder weapon (machete), dismembered remains, the bus, the mat used during the crime, and the clothes of the deceased from drains in Noida and Siddharth Vihar, Ghaziabad. Police said a forensic examination confirmed the presence of human blood on the bus mat and the weapon.
During interrogation, Solanki told police that he and Preeti were in a relationship for several years after meeting at a factory where she worked with her mother. He claimed that their relationship became strained due to frequent quarrels after Solanki refused to leave his wife and marry her.
“I have three children. Preeti threatened me saying that if I don’t marry her she will leave me with nothing…”, he allegedly told the police, according to a Noida Police statement to the press.
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Police said Solanki took Preeti in his bus on November 5 and carried a machete with him. They allegedly stopped eating the parathas before a fight broke out inside the car. Officers said he cut her throat with a machete and later cut off her hands.
He allegedly dumped the body in a drain in Sector 82 and later disposed of the other body parts and the weapon in a dry drain in Siddharth Vihar.
The case has been registered under Section 103(1) and Section 238 of the NSP at Sector 39 police station, which relates to murder and concealment of evidence.
(Tags for translation) Woman’s body found
