Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh) | A 55-year-old woman has been strangled to death with a saree in Jagdishpur village, the ninth such killing in the last five months in the Shishgarh and Shahi Adi areas of Bareilly district using a garment, according to police.

Surveillance has been increased and two special teams have been formed to crack the cases, they said.

This is the ninth such incident reported from areas under the Shishgarh and Shahi Adi police stations, police said and added that all the victims were middle-aged women strangled to death with either "a saree or a chunari".

There are many similarities about this (Jagdishpur village case) and another eight incidents in the past five months, Inspector General of Police, Bareilly, Rakesh Singh, said.

He said serious note has been taken and meetings will be held with people of villages where these incidents have happened.

Of the two special teams, one will work directly on the cases, while the other will collect inputs from village chiefs and persons concerned, Singh said, adding that police personnel in plain clothes will be deployed.

On the latest killing, police said Urmila Devi Gangwar, a resident of Jagdishpur village, had gone to a field on Sunday afternoon to collect fodder for her animals but did not return home Her husband started searching for her, and found her broken bangles on a road's side, about 400 metres from the village. Later, he found her body, they said. There were also injury marks on the back of her head, police said.

Legal proceedings have been started by the Shishgarh police station and the body has been sent for postmortem, they said.