The police on Sunday (July 5, 2026) arrested a man hailing from Odisha, who murdered his wife and abandoned her body near Madukkarai last month.
Jagana Pradhan (23) of Chhatarpur in Odisha, who had been engaged in construction works in Coimbatore, was arrested for murdering his wife Parsha (21) from Gajapati district of the same State.
The woman was found dead in bushes near MGR Nagar road at Manjappallam north within the limits of the Madukkarai police station on June 24. The body, with the name ‘Jagan’ tattooed on her, was in decomposing state and it took a few days for the police to trace the identity of the deceased.
With no clue about the perpetrator, the investigators, led by Superintendent of Police A. Pavan Kumar Reddy, analysed over 5,000 call detail records and around 200 surveillance cameras. Through tower dump analysis, the police identified mobile numbers that were active in and around the scene of crime and later got switched off, eventually leading to Pradhan.
A special team of the police headed by Madukkarai Inspector Rajendra Prasath and Sub-Inspector Paniyarajan apprehended Pradhan from his native. When questioned, he confessed to the crime. He was brought to Coimbatore and arrested on Sunday.
The accused told the police that he got acquainted with Parsha through Instagram in 2023 while residing in Odisha and later got married. While residing in Odisha, the accused repeatedly objected to his wife maintaining contact with several male friends through Instagram and engaging in video calls with them, leading to frequent quarrels, said the police.
They came to Tamil Nadu about a year ago and worked at various construction sites. Although the accused prevented his wife from using a mobile phone, she allegedly continued communicating with several persons through social media by borrowing mobile phones from co-workers at the sites. This further aggravated the disputes between them, the police said.
A quarrel broke out between the couple a few days before the murder when they were working at a construction site at Kovaipudur, after which they stayed at the residence of Pradhan’s parents at Eswaran Nagar, Kovaipudur.
The police said that another argument erupted between them when they were walking to a construction site near Manjapallam. Enraged by the continuous disputes, Pradhan assaulted Parsha and smothered her to death. The accused removed the victim’s clothes to prevent identification and escaped after the murder. Upon learning that the police were attempting to identify the deceased through the tattoo on her hand, he remained at large.
