Lucknow: A crucial breakthrough from onboard CCTV footage helped Government Railway Police (GRP) crack the puzzling and gruesome murder of a teenage girl whose headless torso and limbs were found in a metal box in a train at Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar station on May 17.Police on Thursday arrested the girl’s father, Vigan Ansari, 44, along with his elder sister Noorjahan, 55, and her husband Mujibullah Ansari, 65, for the suspected honour killing. Ansari killed the girl after she refused to end her relationship with a youth from another community, police said.Investigators said the turning point came from surveillance cameras installed inside the train. The CCTV footage captured three persons exiting the AC-3 coach M2 shortly after they had placed the box and bag, containing the dismembered body wrapped in polythene, near the lavatory of the sleeper coach.According to GRP officials, the footage allowed the investigation team to identify and trace the suspects. “The onboard CCTV visuals helped us pinpoint the accused. It established their movement inside the train and linked them directly to the crime,” said a senior official involved in the probe.According to investigators, Noorjahan and Mujibullah Ansari travelled around 46km from their home in Khirkiya ward of Padrauna to reach Pipraghat Mustkil village in Kushinagar district, where the crime took place. Ansari, an e-rickshaw driver, lives with his family in Kushinagar. Preliminary findings suggest that Shabba, 15, was killed on the afternoon of May 16.Investigators said Vigan Ansari has five children, including three daughters. His two elder daughters had earlier left the home and settled with men from another community, a development that had angered him. Police suspect that Shabba too wanted to marry a boy from another community, leading to tension in the family. During interrogation, the accused allegedly confessed to killing her inside his house and later dismembered the body to conceal the crime.Investigators said the accused tried to destroy evidence by cleaning the mud floor of the house with cow dung to conceal bloodstains. A forensic team on Thursday was still collecting samples from the house as part of the investigation.At the time of the crime, the victim’s mother and younger siblings were not at home, police said.To dispose of the body, the accused put the dismembered torso and limbs in a metal box and a cargo bag on an e-rickshaw and travelled 28km to Tamkuhi Road railway station where they boarded the Chhapra–Gomti Nagar Express. They placed the box and the bag in the sleeper coach before quickly moving to the AC-3 coach and deboarded.“Further investigation is on to locate the missing head of the victim as it’s the critical piece of evidence to establish the exact cause of death,” said Rohit Mishra, GRP SP in Lucknow division. Police have recovered two machetes used in dismembering the Shabba’s body.Police said Vigan Ansari changed his statements multiple times regarding the whereabouts of the missing head of his daughter. Kushinagar police, assisted by divers, searched a village pond after Vigan claimed he had dumped the head there. Later, he allegedly told investigators that he had thrown it into the Baasi river, a tributary of the Gandak river flowing near the village.“We have sought police remand for all three accused to question them further and strengthen the case with evidence,” Mishra said.INSETThe Chhapra–Gomti Nagar Express (15114) was commissioned on Oct 12, 2018. The 22 coach train with 11 AC coaches came fitted with CCTV camera. “The S1 coach CCTV camera was found defunct, but AC 3E M2 coach’s CCTV was live and it recorded the accused movement, that became crucial evidence to crack the case,” said GRP Lucknow official source to TOI.
