Married army officer arrested for allegedly killing girlfriend

An army officer allegedly killed a 30-year-old woman with whom he was in an extramarital relationship after she started pressuring him to marry her, police said on Monday.

Ramendu Upadhyay, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, was arrested on Monday for the murder of the woman whose body with injury marks on the head was found on the outskirts of the city the previous day, SP (City) Sarita Dobhal said.

Upadhyay who was posted in Clement Town had alcohol with the woman, identified as Shreya Sharma, in a restaurant on Saturday night and offered to take her on a long drive to which she agreed.

However, after reaching a desolate place on the outskirts of the city he parked the car and hit the woman repeatedly on the head with a hammer until she died, Dobhal said. After killing Shreya, Upadhyay dumped her body along the roadside and drove away, the SP said, adding that the army officer was already married and was under pressure from the woman to marry her.

The army officer has confessed to the crime, she said. The murder weapon, the car used for the crime and the clothes Upadhyay was wearing at the time of committing the crime have been recovered, the SP said.

The army officer in his 40s had been transferred recently to Dehradun from Siliguri where he met Shreya, a woman of Nepali origin, for the first time in a dance bar.

Their friendship soon grew into a relationship, police said. Upadhyay told police that after being transferred to Dehradun, he had rented a separate flat for Shreya. They used to meet at her flat and she would often complain that he was not giving her the status of a wife, police said.