In an incident stranger than a movie script, a 35-year-old woman believed to have been murdered in 2023 has returned home, leaving his family and friends surprised.

Lalita Bai, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, was considered dead and even ‘cremated’ by her family. Four men arrested for supposedly killing her are still in prison. But a twist came a few days ago as she turned up alive at her village in Mandsaur district.

Her father immediately took her to the Gandhi Sagar Police Station to inform them about her return.

Confirming the incident, officer-in-charge Taruna Bhardwaj said she had left home on her own. Ms Bai told them a man named Shahrukh had taken her to Bhanpura in the same district. He “sold” her to another man, whose name was also Shahrukh, for Rs 5 lakh. The second man took her to Rajasthan’s Kota where she lived for 18 months.

Ms Bai said she managed to escape from there and returned home. “I did not have a mobile phone, so I was unable to contact my family members,” she told the police.

Reunited with her children after a year and a half, the mother of two has given her Aadhaar and Voter IDs to confirm her identity to the police.

The 2023 Murder Case

Ms Bai was reported missing from the Gandhi Sagar area in September 2023. A video of a truck accident emerged days later. The victim’s body was found with a crushed head. A murder case was filed in Jhabua after her father identified it as that of his daughter.

“After we filed a missing person report, Thandla police informed us about the recovery of a woman’s body with her head crushed. We went there and identified it as the body of our daughter on the basis of a tattoo and a black string tied around her leg. We performed the last rites too,” said the father.

Four men – Imran, Shahrukh, Sonu, Ejaz – were arrested for the ‘murder’. The suspects, who are in jail pending a trial, have now filed a petition in the local court citing the woman’s reappearance. The court has sought information about the matter, said Jhabua Superintendent Police (SP) Padmavilochan Shukla.

“We will first conduct a medical examination and DNA test of the woman, and also record afresh the statements of witnesses. Only after a thorough investigation, we would be able to state conclusively that the woman who turned up at Gandhi Sagar police station earlier this month is the same woman who was thought to have been murdered,” Mr Shukla told news agency PTI.