Five years after she went missing, the remains of missing Chhattisgarh, India-based news anchor Salma Sultana Lashkar are believed to have been found. Police in the city of Korba confirmed on Wednesday, Aug. 23, per The Indian Express, that skeletal remains believed to belong to the news anchor were recovered below a national highway shortly after her boyfriend and two others were arrested in connection to her disappearance.
The announcement comes nearly five years after Lashkar was first reported missing by her family in 2019. After the news anchor failed to attend the last rights of her father in January of that year, her family approached the Kusmunda police station in Korba and filed a missing complaint. However, little progress was made and the case eventually went cold until March of this year when Korba police came across the missing persons case while reviewing old missing cases of women and children. Police began a review of the case and soon came to believe that Lashkar was murdered by her boyfriend Madhur Sahu, whom she was living with at the time.
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Lashkar and Sahu, a gym instructor, met in 2018. Police believe that in October 2018, Sahu murdered his girlfriend and buried her body with the help of two accomplices. According to police, Sahu and Lashkar had a fight on October 18, 2018, during which Sahu strangled the late news anchor. Police said his friend Kaushal Shrivas helped him. Sahu then allegedly called another friend, Atul Sharma, who helped bury the body near Kohadiya bridge. Police say they then used satellite data, thermal imaging, and ground-penetrating radar to locate Lashkar’s remains during an 11-hour operation.
“We wanted a pinpoint location as digging the highway would cost heavy losses. So we made use of satellite image and ground penetration radar technology, provided by NIT Raipur, to find out the spot where soil consolidation is poor due to digging done while burying the body,” a senior police official said. “We also made use of Google Earth to see where the trees were, which helped us ascertain the body was in that five-metre stretch.”
Skeletal remains believed to be that of the news anchor were discovered approximately eight meters below the surface wrapped in a blanket with her legs tied. Superintendent of Korba district, IPS Uday Kiran, said, “We will collect DNA samples from the skeleton and DNA samples of her mother and siblings. These samples will be sent for DNA analysis to the forensic lab to ascertain if the skeletal remains belong to the victim.” Sahu, Shrivas, and Sharma have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
