Killers chop man into 6 pieces, stuff head in drum; Burnt limbs near Jalandhar Bypass

A chilling silence hung over a vacant plot near the Jalandhar Bypass on Thursday morning—until rag pickers stumbled upon a white plastic drum that would expose one of Ludhiana’s most gruesome murders in recent years.

Inside the drum was a severed human head. Scattered across a 500-metre radius lay five other body parts—arms, legs, and pieces of the torso—some bearing burn marks, as if someone had tried, and failed, to erase the crime with fire.

The victim was identified as 30-year-old Davinder, a resident of Bhora village, barely three kilometres from where his mutilated body was dumped. He worked in digital printing in Mumbai and had returned to Ludhiana on January 6 to purchase machinery. That afternoon, he left home saying he was meeting a friend. He never came back.

When frantic searches yielded nothing, his family filed a missing persons complaint at the Salem Tabri police station. The horrifying truth surfaced the next morning when a rag picker, hoping to reuse the abandoned drum, opened it and found a human head staring back.

Police investigations quickly zeroed in on Davinder’s close friend, Shamsher Singh Shera, and Shera’s wife, Kuldeep Kaur. CCTV footage from cameras installed near their house allegedly shows the couple transporting the same white drum on a motorcycle late at night and returning minutes later with it empty, making multiple suspicious trips.

Also read: Delhi triple murder: Accused tried snake bite, injecting air to end life before killing family

Confirming the details, Sameer Verma, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP-I), said the body appeared to have been dismembered after death, with shallow burn marks suggesting an attempt to destroy evidence. A murder case has been registered against both accused, and police say the motive will become clear after their arrest.

Family members say they initially believed Shera’s claim that Davinder had only briefly visited his house. But CCTV footage told a darker story—Davinder entered the house around 2:45 pm and was never seen leaving alive.

Investigators are probing whether drugs or money triggered the killing. Davinder’s cousin alleged that Shera was involved in drug peddling and that a dispute may have spiralled into murder.

Davinder leaves behind a grieving wife and a seven-month-old daughter—another family shattered as Ludhiana reels from a disturbing pattern of brutal killings, body dumping, and attempts to conceal murder in drums, sacks, and open fields.