'Body in Red Suitcase in Tamil Nadu Express': How a Multi-State Police Hunt Nabbed a Fugitive Couple in Manipur

Frail morning light filters through the dust of Agra Cantt Railway Station as the Tamil Nadu Express grindingly comes to a halt on Platform 3. Inside an unreserved compartment, passengers choke back gag reflexes, pointing nervously toward an abandoned red trolley bag stuffed beneath a lower berth.

Railway police officers unhinge the brass zippers, stepping back in horror. Inside lies the headless, dismembered torso of a middle-aged woman, wrapped tight in plastic.

The chase culminates in Kashimpur, a remote village tucked inside Manipur’s Jiribam district. A combined strike team of Manipur and Tamil Nadu Police surrounds a hideout at daybreak on Saturday, arresting Laskar and Majhi before they can flee deeper into the border terrain.

The Clues in Chennai and the House in Guduvanchery

Grainy, black-and-white CCTV footage from Chennai Central railway station recorded days earlier shows a man hauling the same heavy red suitcase across the crowded concourse. Beside him, a young woman walks with hurried steps, repeatedly scanning the crowd over her shoulder.

Detectives trace the couple’s steps back to a quiet suburban street in Guduvanchery, near Chennai. Armed officers break through the padlocked door of a rented house, following a metallic scent into the kitchen. Inside a massive steel cooking vessel resting on the floor, investigators uncover the remaining dismembered body parts of 38-year-old Hayathun Nisha, an Odisha native employed at a local firm. What had begun as a routine missing-persons inquiry swiftly escalates into a full-scale homicide investigation.

The Pan-India Hunt for Laskar and Majhi

The suspects vanished into the vast Indian railway network immediately after abandoning the train in Uttar Pradesh. Police identify the fugitives as 22-year-old Manik Uddin Laskar, hailing from Assam's Cachar district, and his 21-year-old wife, Bhagabati Majhi, originally from Kendujhar in Odisha.

For 24 days, the pair evades capture, hopping state borders and burning through burner phones across Eastern India. A joint task force comprising Tamil Nadu Police and local state intelligence tracks their digital trail across thousands of kilometres, eventually cornering them near the border region of Northeast India.

Officers transfer the duo to the custody of the Guduvanchery Police Station in Tamil Nadu under a transit warrant granted by a local magistrate. With the suspects held in heavy security, interrogators now focus on uncovering the motive behind the murder and piecing together the final hours leading up to Nisha's death.