Ahmedabad: A two-year murder investigation finally concluded with the arrest of a 32-year-old man, who confessed to killing his wife and attempting to murder both their children, Kheda-Nadiad local crime branch cops said on Thursday.
The case dates to Dec 6, 2022, when police discovered the body of a woman near Bilodra village along the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway. She was later identified as Sayra Banu Manigar. While the woman was strangled using a red dupatta, her three-year-old daughter, Khushi, was found nearby, injured after being thrown from a 30-foot bridge.
The breakthrough in the case came on Feb 7, when a young boy was found with leg fractures under Bridge 23 on the same highway. Nadiad LCB constable Pradipsinh Mahida recognised similarities to the 2022 case. When brought together, the children identified each other as siblings and Uday Verma as their father.
Police traced Verma to Soni Chawl in Ahmedabad. During interrogation, he confessed to strangling his wife Sayra Bano (named Pooja after conversion) in 2022 and attempting to kill their daughter Khushi.
This month, after finding a new romantic partner, he beat his three-and-a-half-year-old son Kanaiya and left him for dead on the highway, police sources said.
Mahida’s regular visits to Matruchhaya Child Care Institution in Nadiad, where Khushi was being looked after, proved crucial. She had mentioned her father Uday several times. “She used to say that her father killed her mother and took away her brother,” Mahida said.
When the injured boy was found, he told the cops that his father’s name was Uday Verma leading them to the alleged killer. Driven by rage and domestic disputes, Verma had planned to eliminate his entire family, police sources said.
The case remained unsolved until police found Kanaiya, and Mahida joined the dots.