Man kills live-in partner, hides body in fridge for months in MP’s Dewas

Dewas (Madhya Pradesh) [India], January 11 (ANI): A man killed his live-in partner as she pressured him to get married and kept the body in a refrigerator for months to conceal the crime in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district, a police official said.
The incident was reported in Vrindavan Dham Colony under BNP (Bank Note Press) police station limits in the district on Friday morning. Upon getting the information about the matter, the police rushed to the spot, inquired about the incident and took the accused into custody who has been identified as Sanjay Patidar, a resident of Ujjain district, the police added.
Superintendent of Police (SP, Dewas) Puneet Gehlot said, "We received information that a woman's body was found in a refrigerator in Vrindavan Dham Colony under BNP police station limits in the district. Acting on it, the police team immediately reached the incident site. The house belongs to a person named Dhirendra Srivastava, who currently resides in Indore and he rented this house to a person named Balveer Rajput. Rajput has been residing in that house for a long time. Two rooms of the house were locked by previous tenants. On Thursday, Balbir Rajput opened those rooms to clean them. On Friday morning, when he tried to open a refrigerator, the body of a woman was found in it. Following which, Rajput immediately informed the police."
"Upon reaching the spot, the police questioned the neighbours and came to know before Balbir Rajput, a person named Sanjay Patidar, who is a resident of Ujjain, had rented that house. A woman named Pratibha alias Pinky Prajapati was residing with him in that house. According to the neighbours, no one had seen that woman since after March 2024. Sanjay Patidar had then said that the woman had gone to her maternal house," SP Gehlot said.
"Based on these initial facts, a team was formed to take Sanjay Patidar into police custody. On Friday noon, the police took Patidar into custody. In the primary interrogation, the accused Sanjay Patidar confessed the crime. Patidar told the police that he had been living in a live-in relationship with Pratibha alias Pinky Prajapati for the last five years. Patidar is a resident of Ujjain and he was with the woman in Ujjain for nearly three years. After that, he rented a house in Dewas and was living here," SP added.
"In the preliminary interrogation, the accused told the police that at the beginning of 2024, the woman was constantly making pressure for marriage. As a result of this, the accused Patidar called one of his associates Vinod Dave, who is also a resident of Ujjain and both strangled the woman to death in March 2024. To conceal the crime, the accused kept the body in the refrigerator of the house. He tied the refrigerator with a cloth, covered it properly and then locked the room," the officer said.
The police arrested the accused Sanjay Patidar. The second accused Vinod Dave is currently in jail in Rajasthan in a crime case at Kotwali police station in Tonk district. The police were trying to contact Rajasthan police.
Accused Sanjay Patidar will be interrogated further after taking the remand and investigation into the matter is underway, he added. (ANI)