Indore MBA student’s gruesome murder: ‘Whatever happened, happened,’ says accused as police reveal circumstances that led to killing

Dhamnotiya was arrested in Mumbai, to which he had fled after allegedly committing the crime. On Wednesday, as he got into a police jeep from the premises of the court where he was presented, he told reporters that he would explain the reason for the crime when the time comes. “I will tell you the reason properly… calmly. The time will come for that,” he said.

The woman’s family has demanded that he be given the death penalty.

Despite his apparent calm on the outside, investigators said Dhamnotiya had grown increasingly volatile and jealous during his relationship.
According to senior police officers, the woman was academically accomplished and socially outgoing, while the accused came from a conservative, small-town background and was purportedly uncomfortable with her independence.

“He was jealous of her speaking to other men,” a senior police officer said, adding, “The accused was incensed that she was in touch with a former boyfriend and also had several male friends. He wanted her to just talk to him and nobody else.”

Marriage had already become a point of conflict, with both families opposing the relationship, investigators said.

The fateful day

On the morning of February 10, the woman’s father dropped her off at the collectorate for a routine correction in her birth certificate. From there, she called her younger sister to say she would attend a birthday party and return home by 11 pm. Police said she went to meet Dhamnotiya at his room at around 3 pm.

Inside the room, investigators said, the confrontation escalated.

Police claimed that the accused had consumed a few beers before the woman arrived. What followed, according to the investigation, was a sequence of acts that combined sexual violence, rage, and deliberate humiliation.

“The accused had consumed a few beers. He filmed the explicit act and killed her by strangling her with a rope,” a police officer said.

Investigators said the accused also attempted to attack the woman with a knife during the assault. “The knife broke and injured his own hand,” the officer said.

After killing her, police said, the accused locked the room from the outside, leaving the body on the bed, and fled the city.

“The accused then fled to Mumbai on the first train he caught,” an officer said, referring to his escape to Mumbai.

In the days that followed, as the woman’s family searched desperately for her, police said the accused used her phone to carry out a final act of cruelty.

Investigators have confirmed that the accused recorded multiple explicit videos and leaked them after the murder.

“The accused filmed 11 clips, which he leaked after the murder to defame the girl,” the officer said.

One of those videos was uploaded to the official college WhatsApp group, triggering alarm among faculty members and classmates even as the woman’s whereabouts remained unknown.

The accused’s conduct following his arrest, particularly his public remarks, has further shocked the victim’s family.

“He has no guilt,” said a relative of the woman. “Piyush was missing while the whole family was under deep depression. He deserves the death penalty.”

The family has demanded capital punishment, saying the murder was not a momentary loss of control but the culmination of sustained jealousy, coercion, and violence, followed by deliberate attempts to humiliate the woman even after her death.

Police said further investigation is underway, including forensic analysis of the rope, knife fragments, digital evidence, and the sequence of video recordings, as they prepare to file a detailed chargesheet in the case.