NEW DELHI: A 23-year-old tattoo artist met a brutal end near the railway tracks in Ganesh Nagar , east Delhi, where his headless body was found cut into at least 16 pieces on Saturday evening.

The body of the victim, Paras Bhasin , was identified through his wife's name tattooed on his arm. The railway police suspect he was crushed by a train but his parents are alleging murder, claiming his wife's family had not accepted the marriage and had allegedly threatened Paras recently.

Bhasin's family, which lives in Meenakshi Garden, west Delhi, said his mutilated body parts were spread across half a kilometre. Police have not yet been able to recover the head.

The railway police they had not come to a firm conclusion regarding Bhasin's death. "We suspect he may have been hit by a train. We are waiting for the autopsy report and investigations are underway. We are probing all angles," said a senior railway police official.

Bhasin's family, however, alleged that his wife's kin had a role in the death. The Bhasin family the two had married at an Arya Samaj temple on May 9 this year. But his wife still lived with her parents, who were dead against the match.

The family said Bhasin's wife had sent him a message around 1pm on Saturday, around three hours before his death, warning him about her parents. "She also sent him a message which said, 'I apologize for my parents' behaviour. They shouldn't have insulted you like that! Please forget me'," said Karan, Bhasin's brother-in-law.

Bhasin had left home at 3.30pm on Saturday to meet his lawyer in an attempt to get his wife to stay with him. Police said he died around 4pm and the family was informed about it by an anonymous caller who called up Bhasin's mother more than 15 times in less than half an hour and provided the whereabouts of the body.

The family members said the way Bhasin's body was cut, it was unlikely that a train had hit him. "We found his arms at different places while the torso was found at a another place. His legs too were found chopped off and thrown away at quite some distance from each other. His phone was found crushed, with the SIM card removed. If at all he was crushed by a train, we suspect he was first murdered and then thrown on the tracks," said Karan.

The family said Bhasin's wife had been living with her parents in Surya Nagar area of Ghaziabad . "Even though she visited him secretly after work or on her way to a showroom owned by her family in Kamla Nagar, she never came to stay with us because she feared her parents. After the marriage, we too tried convincing them to let go for the sake of the children's happiness," said Sanjiv Bhasin, the victim's father, waving the marriage certificate.

He and other family members, Bhasin's sister Surbhi and his mother, alleged that the girl's family members had called him to their house three days ago on the pretext of settling the matter and threatened him. "Three days ago when they threatened to cut my son into pieces, we thought they were just angry and would calm down," exclaimed Sanjiv Bhasin, with tears in his eyes.

The family alleged that the railway police and the local SHO were not investigating the case properly as no senior officer had contacted them 36 hours after the incident.

Bhasin and his wife had met at a tuition centre six years ago, when the girl's family lived in Tilak Nagar, west Delhi. They grew close and often met each other. Bhasin's family said their relationship continued even after the girl's family moved to Ghaziabad. In May this year, they decided to tie the knot quietly.