2 more arrested in 21-year-old woman’s death in Manali

KULLU: The police have arrested two more persons in connection with the mysterious death of 21-year-old Precilia Chenaux, whose body was recovered from the Beas river near Manali in Kullu district on August 13.

According to the police, the two accused, identified as Aniket Sharma (22) and Ajay Sharma (19), were arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and helping the main accused in dumping Precilia’s body into the Beas river at 15 Mile near Manali.

While Aniket is the younger brother of Archit Sharma, 26, who ran hotel Black Magic in Old Manali on lease and has already been arrested in the case, Ajay Sharma used to work in the hotel. The fourth arrested accused is Nishant Thakur, 20, a local resident of Baragran village. Aniket and Archit are residents of Mandi.

Precilia, a resident of Khaknal village near Manali, had left her house on August 7 after telling her family members that she was going out to meet her friends. However, her phone was found to be switched off the same evening and a missing complaint was registered at Manali police station on August 10.

According to the police, Precilia had met accused Archit and Nishant at hotel Black Magic in Old Manali.

Superintendent of police, Kullu, K Gokulachandran told mediapersons that the police were in possession of the CCTV footage that shows “the body of Precilia being dumped by the accused on the evening of August 9”.

“Archit Sharma, his younger brother Aniket and Ajay Sharma had carried the body of Precilia from room No. 202 on the second floor of hotel Black Magic to a car parked outside. They drove down to the nearby 15 Mile and dumped the body in the Beas river,” said the SP.

“The incident happened on August 9, the missing complaint was registered on August 10 and the body was recovered on August 13. The accused knew all this while that the victim’s parents were searching for her, but they never bothered to inform the police,” said the SP, adding that the postmortem report was still awaited.

“The postmortem report will reveal the exact cause of the victim’s death. It will become clear whether the victim was murdered or even raped. In the meantime, we are gathering more evidence in the case,” he added.

The police have registered a case under Section 143 (kidnapping), 612 (criminal conspiracy), 238 (destruction of evidence) and 239 (intentional omission to give information of offence) of the BNS. The police have also seized the vehicle used in the crime.

It may be mentioned that the family members of the victim and residents of Khaknal village had taken out a march in Manali last Thursday and accused the police of shoddy investigation in the case.


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