The Panvel Taluka police have arrested three persons for killing a 42-year-old man who had been demanding back the ₹40,000 that he had given to his friend for finding him a match for marriage.
On July 29, an unidentified body of a man was found at Towerwadi in Maldunge village in Vaje, Panvel. The body was partially decomposed and the face was burnt.
“There were no clues about the deceased person and being in the interiors of the village, there were no CCTVs as well. Hence, we started scrutinising the footages of the CCTVs installed on the road that led to the spot,” Ravindra Daundkar, senior police inspector from Panvel Taluka police station, said.
The footages of the last four days of 15 different spots were monitored. “Assistant Police Inspector, Sanjay Galve, and his team monitored the footages of four days and finally found one wherein four persons on a Scooty were seen entering a shop on July 25. Of the four, one was wearing the dress that the dead body had. The man was seen making a Paytm payment in the shop and using the Paytm details, his name and address was found,” Shivraj Patil, Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone II), said. The deceased was identified as Pravin Suresh Shelar, who worked as a data entry operator from home.
When the team finally traced his residence in Usarli village, they found his mother and brother to be mentally challenged who had no clue about Shelar. Further investigations revealed that Shelar had a friend named Naresh Betkar (42), who was interrogated and he revealed that he and his two friends killed Shelar.
Betkar revealed that Shelar was unmarried and in order to find a match for him, Shelar had given ₹40,000 to Betkar. Since he couldn’t find the match, Shelar started asking for the money. In order to avoid giving the money and to fraudulently usurp his house in Usarli village by taking a thumb impression of his mother, Betkar and his friends took him to a forest 10km away from his home, made him drink alcohol and then killed him by strangulating. Later, they poured petrol and burnt his face.
“They thought that since his mother and brother were not mentally sound, nobody would seek him and they could easily usurp the property,” Daundkar said.
While Betkar is a labourer contractor, the other two accused – Dilip Premraj Shukla (34) and Amansingh Dayashankar Singh (25) – worked under him. Shukla and Singh were nabbed from Uttar Pradesh and all three accused have been remanded to police custody till August 12.