The Punjab Police on Tuesday arrested Air Force Sergeant Sulesh Kumar and his wife Anuradha in connection with the murder of a missing Air Force employee. The police also found the chopped up body of Vipin Shukla from Kumar’s residential quarters in the Bhisiana air force station. The third accused in the case, Kumar’s brother-in-law Shashi Bhushan, has not been caught yet.

During his interrogation, Kumar confessed to the crime, saying he had decided to kill Shukla as he had an “illicit relation” with his wife. “After discovering she was pregnant, Anuradha [had] asked Vipin [Shukla] to marry her, but he refused. He had also been spreading details of their relationship among other employees. Thus, Anuradha, with her husband and brother hatched a conspiracy to murder Vipin [Shukla] for revenge,” Superintendent of police (traffic) Gurmeet Singh told Hindustan Times.

The murder took place on February 8, the day Shukla went missing. Kumar had called Shukla to help him pack as they were moving to a different quarter. “He attacked him [Shukla] with an axe, killing him. He then packed Shukla’s body into a box and took it to his new quarters,” said the police. The body was cut into pieces on February 19 and packed into 16 polythene bags. While some of the bags were kept in the wardrobe, the others were found in the refrigerator, reported The Indian Express.

Singh said that Shukla’s wife Kumkum had registered a missing person complaint on February 15. During the search operation, a team from the Punjab police and air force station officials detected a foul smell from Kumar’s quarters and later found Shukla’s body stored in 16 polythene bags.

Shukla had joined the Air Force in 2009. He had been posted at the Bhisiana air force station since May 2014. He hailed from Gonda, Uttar Pradesh.