GREATER NOIDA: A man who was accused of killing his pregnant wife for dowry by her family heaved a sigh of relief on Monday when police claimed to have solved the woman’s murder , with the arrest of a couple who lived in the same house in Greater Noida’s Bisrakh area.Police said Mala , whose body was found stacked in a suitcase in the Hindon area on April 7, was killed by 26-year-old Saurabh Diwakar and his wife Ritu (25), who lived in the same house in Bisrakh’s Haibatpur village, where the victim also lived with her husband . The motive, cops said, was robbery of jewellery and clothes. The duo was caught when they switched on Mala’s stolen mobile phone after nearly five months on Sunday.The case was, in fact, a blind murder till Sunday when Mala’s stolen phone showed the location of a house in Ghaziabad’s Vijay Nagar area, after which Saurabh and his wife Ritu were arrested. The stolen jewellery and clothes of Mala, along with the mobile phone, were recovered from their possession.Ajaypal Sharma, Gautam Buddha Nagar SSP, said two days before the crime, Mala’s cousin Mohit had visited her along with his wife. Ritu was also present there at the time when Mala was showing all the gifts she had received on her marriage to her cousin.“Ritu after having a look at the jewelleries and clothes Mala had with her, hatched a plan of a robbery along with her husband who was unemployed for months.On April 7 Ritu called Mala in her house for some help. And when both the women were chatting, Saurabh attacked Mala from behind and stranguled her to death with her own scarf, while Ritu firmly held her hands and legs,” Sharma said.After the murder, Ritu and her husband went to Mala’s flat and brought two suitcases. They stacked the body in one of them, while packed all her jewellery and clothes in the other. They later booked an auto-rickshaw for Indirapuram where they dumped the body.“The past five months have been a nightmare for me because nobody knew about what happened to my wife. Some had accused me of her murder while others made derogatory remarks on her. Police also called me for questioning for nearly 26 days. Even my family turned against me for a while. My world fell apart after I lost my wife. I still can’t believe that someone who lived so close to us could kill her for money,” said Shivam.Shivam and Mala were from Vijaynagar area of Ghaziabad and met each other on Facebook in 2017. Subsequently, they fell in love and finally got married on November 1, 2017, with their families consent who were initially opposed to their relationship. The couple started living in a rented accommodation in Haibatpur village.

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