A man was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly sexually assaulting and murdering a nurse employed at a private hospital in Uttarakhand.
The suspect, identified as Dharmendra Kumar, was apprehended a week after the nurse’s body was discovered in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur district.
According to police reports, Kumar allegedly intercepted the nurse while she was on her way home from work at a hospital in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, on July 30, and subsequently assaulted her.
Security camera footage captured the nurse leaving the hospital on the evening of July 30 and boarding an e-rickshaw from Indra Chowk in Rudrapur, which is located in Udham Singh Nagar district, Uttarakhand.
However, she never arrived at her rented accommodation on Kashipur Road in Bilaspur, Uttar Pradesh, where she lived with her 11-year-old daughter.
The nurse’s sister filed a missing person report on July 31.
A week later, the 33-year-old nurse’s body was found on an empty plot in Rampur’s Dibdiba area, near the Uttarakhand border.
Kumar, a resident of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, was identified by police after security footage showed him following the nurse. Authorities allege that Kumar, who is a drug addict, did not know the victim.
During the investigation, the woman’s phone was traced to Rajasthan, leading to Kumar’s eventual arrest in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.