Skull-in-suitcase: Woman killed over son’s name, husband held | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: The human skull found inside an abandoned suitcase along the Mumbai-Ahemdabad highway near Mandvi belonged to Utpala Hippargi, a woman from West Bengal who was murdered by her husband after an altercation regarding the surname of her son from a previous marriage, officers from the Mira-Bhayander-Vasai-Virar (MBVV) crime branch told Hindustan Times.

Harish Hippargi, 49, the woman’s husband, confessed to killing and decapitating her and dumping her body near the railway tracks after he was arrested on Saturday, the officers said.

“We have handed over Hippargi to the Mandvi police and he will be produced in court on Sunday,” said Avinash Ambure, deputy commissioner of police (crime).

The Mandvi police in Virar East had registered a murder case against unknown people after the woman’s skull was found wrapped in a plastic bag inside a suitcase dumped along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway on Thursday night.

According to officers from unit 3 of the MBVV crime branch, which investigated the matter, Harish and Utpala Hippargi were married for 22 years and lived in Rehmat Nagar in Nalasopara East. Harish Hippargi ran an imitation jewellery business and the couple had a long running dispute as Utpala was not ready to change the surname of her son from a previous marriage to Hippargi, said Shahuraj Ranware, senior police inspector, crime branch unit 3.

On January 9, 2025, around 3am, after the couple had a fresh argument over the issue, Harish Hippargi strangled Utpala to death and decapitated her. He then placed her head and some belongings in a suitcase and dumped it in the bushes near Pirkunda Dargah along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway, while the body was put in a sack and dumped into a drain near the railway tracks in Virar East.

“When he returned home, he told his son that his mother had left home and gone back to her village in West Bengal,” said an officer.