Agra forests turn into dead-body dumping grounds

Vijay Upadhyay

Agra. The sight of an actress moving through the deep, dark recesses of dense forests and a body hanging from a tree have always been the favorite Bollywood formulae to instill the feeling of fear and anxiety in the minds of the cinema-goers.

But the Bollywood forests seem to have come alive in Agra these days, with criminals utilising these forests as a heaven for disposing of dead bodies and abductees. Over the past week, five dead bodies being discovered hanging from the trees in the forests around the town, throwing the local police in a tizzy.

Discovered by women venturing into the forests to gather dead wood, all the bodies found in the forests have a common feature. They had first been murdered and then hung from the tree using a rope noose. A number of empty nooses have also been found in these forests indicating that more bodies could have been disposed off by the criminals in similar fashion.

The most shocking discovery was that of the bodies of a young couple that were found hanging from trees barely a few feet from each other, indicating the possibility of the two being murdered due to a possible amorous affair.

While four bodies, including this couple were discovered in forests falling outside the city limits, one body was also found hanging in a thicket of Acacia trees in front of the Agra Fort.

Talking to The Pioneer, Shishu Yadav, in-charge of Itmad-ud-daullah PS said that all dead bodies found in the forests had already been badly decomposed and had been swept clean of any identification by the criminals and so far, efforts to identify the bodies failed to yield any results.
He said that the bodies had apparently been that of abduction and murder victims and the police were still trying to get the bodies identified before it could begin investigating these murder cases.

He said that after a number of empty nooses were also found besides the bodies, the police have now increased surveillance on the roads leading into these forests to track down the criminals, who were murdering people and disposing their bodies inside thick forests.