On July 14, police in the Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh pulled a man's body out of a forest stretch that lies between the villages of Kope and Dongaria, inside the jurisdiction of the Warasivani police station. The victim, later identified as 40-year-old Rajendra Sharangat of Dongaria village, had been strangled, and the gruesome discovery sent a wave of alarm through the surrounding villages. What looked like the work of an unknown assailant turned out, within just five days, to be a killing planned and carried out by someone from inside Rajendra's own family, his father-in-law.
A body in the forest, and a rush to identify it
Villagers near Kope were the first to spot the unidentified body lying in the forest and immediately alerted the police. A team from Warasivani police station reached the spot along with a Forensic Science Laboratory unit and a dog squad, standard procedure for cases where the cause of death is not immediately clear. After documenting the scene, officers sent the body for a postmortem examination. The postmortem report confirmed that the man had died after being strangled, ruling out any possibility of an accident or natural death. Investigators also discovered that Rajendra had been missing from his village for a day before his body turned up in the forest, a detail that helped them work out a rough timeline of his final hours.
CCTV footage points investigators to the father-in-law
With the postmortem confirming murder, police turned their attention to Rajendra's family and neighbours, questioning them about his last known movements. At the same time, officers began scanning CCTV cameras installed around the area near the crime scene. The footage showed Rajendra in the company of two men shortly before he died, one of them his father-in-law, Rajesh Chauhan, and the other an unidentified companion. Acting on this evidence, police took Rajesh Chauhan into custody and questioned him at length. Under sustained interrogation, he confessed to killing his son-in-law, also naming his accomplice as Prabhudayal Bisen.
A liquor and chicken party set the trap
The investigation revealed a carefully planned sequence of events. Rajendra had wanted money to buy alcohol and had first asked his mother for it, but she turned him down. Rajesh Chauhan then called Rajendra's mother himself and persuaded her over the phone to hand her son Rs 1000. With that money secured, Rajesh got in touch with Rajendra and invited him over. The father-in-law, his accomplice Prabhudayal Bisen, and Rajendra then sat down together for a liquor and chicken feast, an evening Rajendra had no idea was designed to lower his guard. Once the drinking was over, Rajesh and Prabhudayal led him into the forest and strangled him to death using a gamchha, a cotton towel Rajesh had brought with him.
Years of domestic violence and an unpaid Rs 1 lakh loan
Police said the roots of Rajesh Chauhan's anger went back much further than that one evening. Rajendra was addicted to alcohol and would frequently beat his wife, who is Rajesh's daughter. Each time the violence happened, she would call her father and tell him what had happened, and over time this built up deep resentment in Rajesh. Rajendra's drinking had also taken a toll on the family's finances, he had sold off agricultural land to fund his habit and had spent that money too, leaving little for his household. Adding to the tension, Rajendra owed his father-in-law Rs 1 lakh, a loan Rajesh had given him that was never repaid despite repeated requests. Investigators say it was this combination, the unpaid debt and the repeated abuse of his daughter, that finally pushed Rajesh Chauhan to plan the murder in advance. As part of that plan, he had travelled to his son-in-law's village ahead of the killing to set things in motion.
What has been recovered so far
Police have seized the gamchha used to strangle Rajendra, along with two motorcycles and the mobile phones belonging to the accused. Both Rajesh Chauhan and Prabhudayal Bisen are now in police custody as further legal proceedings continue.
