Cops recover body parts of slain Bollywood actress from Allahabad

Police on Wednesday claimed to have retrieved the decomposed remains, suspected to be that of the small-time Bollywood actress Minakshi Thapa, allegedly disposed of by two junior film artists, from a water tank at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.

A police team which on Wednesday reached Allahabad, along with the two arrested accused, recovered the body parts from a water tank of a building, sources said, adding that the severed head of the 26-year-old starlet is yet to be traced.

"Though the remains appear to be that of Thapa, we have sent them for a DNA analysis to identify the body," police said.

Police on Saturday apprehended Amitkumar Jaiswal (36) and Preeti Surin (26) from suburban Bandra in Mumbai in connection with the brutal murder of the Nepalese national Minakshi Thapa who had been missing since last month.

Police said the accused duo, who hail from Uttar Pradesh, had befriended the victim on the sets of Bollywood film Heroine in which she landed a small role.

They were under the impression that the victim belonged to a rich family and hatched a conspiracy to kidnap her and demand a ransom of Rs15 lakh from her family members, they said.

Accordingly, the duo lured the starlet, who had moved to Mumbai from Dehradun two months back, to accompany them to Uttar Pradesh on March 12 under the pretext of acting assignment.

Police said the duo decided to kill the actress when they realised that her family members could not pay the ransom.

The accused duo first strangulated Thapa to death and then chopped off her head. They dumped her body parts in a water tank whereas her severed head, packed in a plastic bag, was thrown out during their transit in a bus between Allahabad and Lucknow.

"Thapa gave them the impression that she was from an affluent family and wanted to dabble in films as a hobby," a police official had said.

After taking Thapa to Allahabad under the pretext of a film shoot, the duo called up her family members asking for money.

The duo killed the victim after her family members could transfer only Rs60,000 out of the ransom money they had demanded into the accused's account, police said.