A 45‑year‑old former village pradhan and father of 18 has been found dead after being allegedly murdered by his lover and her brother, whose accomplices bludgeoned him to death and then stuffed his body into a sack before dumping it in a canal near Sumerpur village in Pratapgarh district. The victim, identified as Mustaq Gulshan, commonly known as Munna, had served as the village head of Sumerpur and is survived by two wives and 18 children – six sons and three daughters from each wife, with one daughter already married, according to local police.
Munna had gone missing on March 18, prompting his family to lodge a missing‑person complaint at Mandhata police station. Initially treating the case as a disappearance, investigators later began treating it as a suspected murder after they noticed inconsistencies in the timelines and accounts provided by people close to the victim. The probe intensified when police traced Munna’s motorcycle, which he had ridden on the day he vanished, and cross‑checked mobile phone records linking him to a woman in the village who did not figure in his immediate family circle.
That woman has been identified as Suman Devi, a married villager who reportedly lived alone in Sumerpur after her husband migrated out of the district for work. According to police, Munna and Suman had developed a long‑standing romantic relationship, during which he began allegedly pressuring, harassing, and blackmailing her to continue the affair even after she tried to break it off. Suman, described by investigators as deeply distressed by the pressure, reportedly confided in her brother, who in turn agreed that “something had to be done” to end what he perceived as harassment and threat to his sister’s reputation.
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On the basis of statements recorded by police, Suman and her brother allegedly conspired to lure Munna to her maternal home on the evening of March 18 under the pretext of a private meeting. Once Munna entered the house, the accused and at least two other accomplices allegedly attacked him with iron rods, targeting his head and inflicting fatal blows that killed him on the spot. After the killing, the group allegedly wrapped Munna’s body in a sack, carried it on a motorcycle to a nearby canal, and dumped it into the water, hoping the current would carry the body away and obliterate evidence.
The body’s recovery came days later, after investigators, following leads from the victim’s phone and locals who had noticed suspicious activity around the canal, launched a search near the waterway. When the sack‑wrapped corpse was pulled out, recognizable features and belongings, including clothing and the motorcycle parked nearby, allowed family members to identify the body as Munna’s. The body has since been sent for a post‑mortem examination to confirm the exact cause and timing of death, with local forensic teams also collecting samples for DNA and trace‑evidence analysis.
Police have by now arrested Suman and her brother, formally booking them for murder and conspiracy, while intensifying the search for the remaining suspects believed to have participated in the assault and disposal of the body. Investigators have told local media that they are treating the case as a crime of passion intertwined with perceived social humiliation, in which the accused allegedly saw Munna’s conduct as a threat to their family’s standing in the village. The case has sent shockwaves through Pratapgarh, where neighbours and relatives of the victim have described his dual‑family life as an open secret, even as they now struggle to comprehend how a man with 18 dependants met such a violent end.
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