A husband allegedly killed his wife and boiled her dismembered remains in a pressure cooker in India.

Ex-soldier Gurumurthy, 45, was said to have battered his partner Puttavenkata Madhavi, 35, to death at their home in Hyderabad City in Telangana state.

He claimed he dismembered her in the bathroom and boiled her body parts in batches in a pressure cooker.

He then allegedly carved the softened flesh from her bones, which he ground into a powder using a mortar and pestle. He said he dumped her remains in a lake in the city.

Police detained Gurumurthy following a report from Madhavi's mother Subamma on January 18.

City inspector Nagaraju said Subamma had filed a missing person report after her daughter went missing on January 16.

They took Gurumurthy into custody for questioning. During interrogations, Gurumurthy allegedly confessed to murdering his wife of 13 years 'in a fit of rage'.

The husband said she had wanted to return to her hometown to attend a festival. He claimed their children had been with their aunt at the time.

Police said frequent arguments had strained the couple's relationship over the years, culminating in the chilling alleged murder last week.

Search teams have been dispatched to the local lake to find Madhavi's body parts, but police said they have yet to recover any evidence at the scene.

Authorities said they were treating the case as a 'missing persons case'.

Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu said: 'We cannot go by mere claims. We are collecting all technical and scientific pieces of evidence. The case is under investigation.'

The National Crime Records Bureau reported there were 445,256 cases of crimes against women in India in 2022 - the latest year for which data is available. While the National Commission for Women said domestic violence accounts for 24 per cent of the complaints they received in 2024. However, the figures are believed to be much higher due to underreporting.

Patriarchy is deeply embedded in India, where men traditionally hold dominant roles in both family and society, while women are often expected to adhere to subservient roles. The power imbalance manifests in unequal access to education, limited economic independence, systemic discrimination, and gender-based violence against women.