Mumbai crime: Man suspected of drowning wife in water barrel

When his wife went to the Sheikh residence, she found it locked from outside. A strange smell also emanated from the house. The couple then broke the lock and saw Reema’s body in a drum full of water. “It was upside down, with the head at the bottom of the barrel and the feet upwards,” said Baghoria. The victim’s husband has gone missing.

The landlord immediately called the Nirmal Nagar police. An officer from the police station said, “Since the body had been in water for two days, it was swollen and stuck in the barrel. We had to cut the drum open to take the body out.” Cops then sent it for a post-mortem and also noticed a cut mark on her neck. “She was murdered by a knife or a cutter,” said the officer.

Extramarital affair?
The landlord hadn’t asked for any documentation or records from the couple, before he took them in as tenants. He only had phone numbers of some relatives of Reema, because she would use his phone to call them. After he contacted them, he obtained the details of one Anish Rehman, who was Reema’s cousin and stayed at Mahim.

According to Rehman, the couple was from Maldah, West Bengal. They had left the town in August last year. But he said he did not know that Reema was in Mumbai. The landlord speculated that Dalim suspected his wife was having an affair with someone and was pregnant. “We will confirm that after the post-mortem is done,” added the police officer.

Police currently have no identification proof of Dalim, the husband, and suspect that he was the one who killed his wife, since he has gone missing since the murder occurred. A parallel investigation is also being conducted by the Crime Branch.