RAIPUR: A two-year-old missing person case in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district has unraveled into a chilling murder mystery involving suspicion, an alleged affair, a contract killing, and a skeleton buried behind a house in a remote Bastar village. Police claimed to have cracked the “blind murder” of a 22-year-old college student after exhuming her skeletal remains stuffed inside a plastic sack from a drain-side burial site in Toylanka village.
The Victim and Disappearance
The victim, Ramdai Kashyap, a second-year college student who lived alone in Dantewada for her studies, had mysteriously disappeared in June 2024. For nearly two years, there was no breakthrough in the case. Investigators now allege that the murder was orchestrated by Kamli Kartam, 40, wife of a District Reserve Guard (DRG) jawan, who suspected that her husband was in a relationship with the young woman.
The Murder Plot
According to police, Kamli paid Rs 50,000 to her relative Hungaram to eliminate Ramdai. The case resurfaced after Dantewada Superintendent of Police Gaurav Rai ordered a review of old missing person files. A special team reopened the investigation and began analyzing call detail records and statements of relatives when repeated calls from Ramdai's phone were traced. During questioning, police claimed that others stood by their statements but Kamli gave misleading information. She eventually broke down and confessed to plotting the murder out of anger over her husband’s alleged closeness to the girl.
Execution of the Crime
Investigators alleged that the conspiracy was executed when the jawan was at the village for the traditional Beej festival. Kamli said that a woman relative, Lakshmi Nag, 22, helped her in the crime. Hungaram traveled to Dantewada in a pickup vehicle and entered the victim’s house, allegedly smothered her mouth and slit her neck before transporting the body overnight to a neighboring village. The body was buried behind a house.
Exhumation and Arrests
Acting on Kamli’s disclosure, police, along with a magistrate, forensic experts, and witnesses, excavated the site and recovered a human skeleton packed inside a plastic sack. Police have arrested Kamli Kartam and Lakshmi Nag and sent them to judicial remand, while Hungaram is at large.
