Crime Patrol: Wrist watch helps Aurangabad police unravel murder mystery (Episode 68 - 17th December 2011)

Cops find a dead body of Sudarshan Kambli a bus driver who works for BEST lying in the field of Sangamner and also succeeds in finding her wife who had filed a police complaint in Parel depot as he was missing from since few days. Sudarshan was already married and Deepa was his second wife. Cops gets to know that Sudarshan came to Sangamner with his sister-in-law Ankita. Who killed Sudarshan? Who is Jagdish Maharaj?



The Inside Story

AURANGABAD: The anti-dacoity squad of the Aurangabad rural police has cracked a murder mystery with the help of the victim's wrist watch that had the word BEST' embossed on its back.



The police have identified the victim as Siddhartha Ahire (52), an employee of BEST in Mumbai and a resident of Thane, whose body was found in a severely battered shape in a farm in Garaj, under the Shivur police jurisdiction of Vaijapur taluka in the early hours of July 15.



Ahire's killing was allegedly ordered by his wife Usha (35), who had paid Rs 30,000 for the job through her lover Pravin Deshmukh (35) alias Pravan Maharaj, a resident of Kannad, in Aurangabad district, who is a quack and a self-styled godman.



Usha, her younger sister Manisha Mirani (28), both residents of Thane, Shivkumar Luttur Rajvar (35), a resident of Mumbai, Pravin Deshmukh and Navnath Rathod (30), the contract killer were arrested on Friday.



The court of Judicial Magistrate First Class in Vaijapur on Saturday remanded all the five suspects to police custody till August 12.



Assistant police inspector Sandeep Gurme, in charge of the squad, said that the body was found in the farm of Dnyanwshwar Chavan. Police had registered an offence of murder against unidentified people. Superintendent of police (SP) Manoj Lohia and additional SP Arvind Chavaria appointed two independent squads to solve the case as the body was battered beyond recognition by the culprits, he said.



"The only clue the police had was the wrist watch that Ahire was wearing and which had the word BEST embossed on its back. We zeroed in on the details and found out that he was a BEST employee. Usha had already lodged a missing complaint that her husband had gone missing from Sangamner in Ahmednagar district, where a court had directed him to deposit Rs 1,200 as maintenance to his first wife," Gurme said.



According to Gurme, Usha and her husband came in contact with Deshmukh, who claimed to be possessing magical powers to cure diseases. Deshmukh also used to visit their residence in Thane and got acquainted with other family members. "In the meantime, Usha and Deshmukh developed illicit relations, but they found Ahire to be an obstacle and decided to eliminate him. Three days before the murder, Manisha, Usha's sister, visited Deshmukh in Kannad and gave him Rs 30,000, which was paid to the contract killer, Navnath Rathod," he said.



Gurme said that as per the plan, Usha asked her husband to go to Sangamner along with her sister Manisha, who was to get married on July 14. "They reached Sangamner on July 14, the day when he was also supposed to deposit the maintenance allowance in court. However, Usha insisted that he go to Kannad to get his ailment cured. Ahire called Deshmukh, who in turn asked him to come to Deogaon Rangari near Vaijapur, which is closer to Sangamner," he said.



"The duo picked up Ahire from Deogaon Rangari, brought him towards the Garaj area and attacked and killed him with sharp weapons and abandoned his body in the farm. Later, they burnt the bag and other belongings of Ahire. They also tried to wipe out all the evidences except the wrist watch, which eventually led to their arrest," said Gurme.



Thanks To:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-08/pune/28312936_1_usha-murder-mystery-contract-killer