Woman found dead at Bengaluru railway station identified; lover, 3 others held

Police have identified the woman whose decomposed body was found stuffed in a storage drum at the SMVT Bengaluru railway station on March 13.

Four people have been detained for the murder. An alleged lover of the deceased woman is among the suspects.

While the railway police didn’t officially identify the woman, well-placed sources gave her name as Tamanna, a Bihar native living in Kalasipalyam, central Bengaluru. She had been separated from her husband and was living with one of the suspects. She was in her early 30s.

Read | Serial killings in Bengaluru: 3 women’s bodies at 3 railway stations in 3 months

Police hunted down the suspects by tracing the auto-rickshaw in which three men arrived with a blue drum and left it near the main entrance of the air-conditioned railway station shortly after midnight on March 12. She was killed about 48 hours before her body was discovered.

Third time

This was the third time that a woman’s body was found inside a railway station in Bengaluru.

On January 4, police discovered the highly decomposed body of a woman in a blue drum at the Yeshwantpur railway station. On December 6, 2022, a female corpse was found wrapped in blankets and gunny sacks inside a train compartment at the Baiyappanahalli railway station.

Both women were in their 30s and remain unidentified.

The discovery of three female corpses at city railway stations in just over three months prompted police to suspect that a serial killer was involved. The most obvious sign was the way the bodies were disposed of.

No connection between the three cases: SP

But Dr Soumyalatha S K, Superintendent of Police, Railways, believes that the similarities end there.

“We have identified the deceased woman but need more time to determine who killed her and why,” she told DH, referring to the body found on March 13. “There is no connection between the three cases.”

Police will publicly identify the woman and her suspected killers on Thursday. They are also expected to offer clarity about the motive.