In Keonjhar, Odisha, police exhumed the skeletal remains of 21-year-old Anita Mahakud from Siddhamatha Reserve Forest on Sunday, almost a month after her suspected murder by her boyfriend in what is believed to be a crime of passion.

Anita, a resident of Dumbi Sahi village in the Bhadrasahi panchayat, went missing on May 11, leaving her home without her mobile phone. Her family later found that the last call on her phone was from her boyfriend.

The accused, Sahaja Alda, 26, initially claimed he had no knowledge of her whereabouts when questioned. Following a missing person complaint filed by Anita’s mother at the Barbil police station on May 14, the family escalated their concerns to the Keonjhar Superintendent of Police due to perceived inaction by local authorities.

A breakthrough occurred when the accused was detained during an intensified investigation on Saturday. During interrogation, he confessed to the murder and was formally arrested on Sunday. Following his confession, police recovered Anita’s skeletal remains from a pit in a dense forest, approximately 5 km from where the murder allegedly took place, with the assistance of an executive magistrate and tehsildar Rakesh Kumar Panda, along with a forensic team.

According to police, the couple had been in a relationship for several years. The accused reportedly became suspicious after viewing Anita’s social media posts, believing she was involved with another man. On the day of the incident, he allegedly called her to meet near a football field about half a kilometer from the village, where he attacked her with a sharp knife, stabbing her multiple times in the neck, resulting in her death.

The confession revealed that the accused initially left the body at the scene, returned later that night, and transported it on his motorcycle to the forest. He buried the body in a pit and disposed of her belongings along with the murder weapon in another pit to eliminate evidence. He also allegedly discarded his blood-stained clothes near a dam.

Police have seized the motorcycle used in the crime from the accused’s home and recovered Anita’s scarf, slippers, the murder weapon, and other incriminating items from the forest. The accused was taken to the crime scene to reenact the events of the murder. He has been presented before a court and remanded in judicial custody, with further investigations ongoing.