An ex-serviceman allegedly murdered his wife, dismembered her body, crushed her bones into powder and flushed down the remains in a toilet, all during a day-long 'operation', police said on Tuesday after arresting the accused.
Giving the chilling details of the crime, police described the act as 'rarest of rare' and of 'barbaric nature'.
Rachakonda Commissioner Sudheer Babu said P Gurumurthy, 39, was arrested after he gave a 'confessional' statement that he killed his wife and then cut her body into small parts, boiled them and later burnt them before crushing the bones into powder.
The accused left his two children at a relative's house with an intention to murder his wife Madhavi, 35.
On January 16, he had an argument with her and later smashed her head against the wall due to which she fell down, Babu told reporters in Hyderabad.
The accused later strangulated the hapless victim to death.
Seeking to cover up the murder, he cut his wife's body into small parts, which he placed in a bucket. He then heated the water using a water heater, boiled the parts, and later burnt them on the single burner gas stove, the police official said.
After that, the accused crushed the bones with a stone roller into powder. The bone powder and small pieces of flesh were disposed of in the toilet, flushed with water several times.
The leftover small bones (remnants) were kept in the household trash bin, intending to be disposed of later. To minimise the foul smell while burning, he kept the doors and kitchen windows open.
He carried out the grisly act of disposing of the body from 10 am to around 6 pm on January 16. Later, he cleaned up the bathroom by using detergent and phenyl to remove any traces of evidence.
"I am not able to understand how a person can behave like this. It is ultimate stature of barbaric nature. Utterly, rarest of rare ways of killing a person," the Commissioner told reporters.
Gurumuthy is a native of Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh and was employed as a security guard with a defence establishment in Hyderabad.
He had even accompanied his in-laws when they lodged a complaint with the Meerpet police on January 18. Police had registered a 'woman missing' FIR then.
Later, during police interrogation, Gurumurthy told them he had killed his wife and dismembered her body, following which the investigation was expedited.
The accused had also dumped some remnants of the body parts at a nearby lake, the police official said.
The accused had also brought his children home and told them that their mother had gone somewhere when they asked about her whereabouts.
The accused also tried to mislead the police and did not show any remorse, the official said.
Police, who said the murder was planned, said the accused also confessed his crime to a relative.
Scientific evidence was collected in the murder which would be submitted to court, the top official said.
The police commissioner said the probe would be completed soon and a chargesheet would be filed.
Based on the confession of the accused, the case has been altered from a woman missing to a murder on January 28 and his arrest was made, a police release said.
Police began an investigation into the case after the mother of the deceased woman lodged a complaint on January 18 that her daughter was missing.
The complainant had stated that her daughter Madhavi had left the house after a quarrel with her husband on January 16.
During investigation, police, who verified CCTV footage of the house, found that Gurumurthy and Madhavi went inside the house on January 15 night.
As per the footage, there was no evidence of Madhavi going out, they said.
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