Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A yellow stain on the shirt of the man, who hacked his girlfriend to death at a hotel in Manali on Wednesday, led to his arrest. The Manali police told Free Press that accused had left the bag behind, which contained the body of 26-year-old Sheetal Kaushal, before fleeing. The hotel staff told police them that was wearing a white shirt, which had a yellow stain on left side, which might have occurred after food dropped on his shirt while having meals.
The police sealed all the borders of the hill station and succeeded in arresting him within a few hours on Wednesday night. Manali DSP KD Sharma told Free Press that accused Vinod Thakur (23), a native of Haryana, had befriended Sheetal Kaushal three years ago on social media. With no photographs of the accused and defunct hotel CCTV cameras, the police were dependent merely on yellow stain as a clue.
Sheetal’s mother on accused
Victim Sheetal Kaushal’s mother told Free Press that Thakur visited Bhopal earlier too to meet Sheetal. She added that Sheetal went missing from her house in Shahpura on May 5. She had taken Rs 10,000 with her, and did not tell anyone where she was going. “Later, we learnt about the incident over the phone, which was a shocker for all of us. She had told her brother Rohit once that Vinod had been blackmailing her to extort money from her,” she (did not want to be named) added. Sheetal’s father Kailash Kaushal had lodged a missing person complaint at Shahpura police station about her.
Duo visited Manali for second time: Kullu SP
Kullu superintendent of police Dr Kartikeyan Gokulchandran told Free Press that this was the second time that the duo had visited Manali. The accused has not revealed the exact reason behind killing the woman, he said. He said the post-mortem was carried out in presence of Sheetal’s father and two brothers who reached Manali on Friday.
