The Mumbai crime branch’s unit 4 arrested a 45-year-old police constable, posted as a driver of an assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Sion division, and his wife for allegedly killing a person whose headless body was found on September 30, in the Antop Hill area.
As per the investigation, police said the constable’s wife and victim, Dada Jagdale, 38, were allegedly having an illicit relation, due to which, the constable decided to kill him.
The accused Shivshankar Gaikwad and his wife Monali, 35, resided at the Worli police quarters. Gaikwad joined the police service around 20 years ago in the motor transport department and was posted as a driver of ACP Dr Ashwaini Patil (Sion division).
Police are yet to recover the sharp objects which were used to cut the victim’s body into five pieces. Police said the head is still missing and they are trying to trace it, said a police officer. Jagdale is a native of Solapur. His wife Monali was also from the same village and knew the victim from her school days, said a police officer.
The incident came to light on September 30, around 7:30am when a local resident noticed a body with burn and cut marks, wrapped in a plastic bag in sector 7 of the Antop Hill area. A police team rushed on the spot. The body was without a head. The hands and legs were severed, and the accused made an attempt to burn the body. The spot was a few metres away from the office of ACP, said deputy commissioner of police Prakash Jadhav of the crime branch. The murder case was registered against unknown persons.
“The crime branch’s unit 4 and 5 started conducting a parallel investigation. Several teams were made, and they were working on the different leads. We scrutinised the CCTV footage of the vicinity and several vehicles were verified. We found one suspicious Wagon R captured in the footage, which entered in the building where the body was found and it was owned by Gaikwad,” added Jadhav.
Another lead was an aluminium plate that had been implanted in the left ankle of the victim (Gaikwad). Based on the serial number on the plate several officers scoured several cities across the country to identify the persons on whom the plates were implanted. We verified and found that 40 same aluminium plates were issued by a company that were implanted to the patient across the country. During the search, a police team reached a Solapur based hospital and managed to identify the person on whom the plate was implanted, said Jadhav.
“On checking Gaikwad’s call records, we learnt that he had made two to three calls to the victim in Solapur from Mumbai. And the victim’s mobile number was found with maximum calls on Monali’s number. When the police team visited Jagdale’s residence the family informed us that Jagdale had gone to Mumbai to meet his friend” said a crime branch officer.
During interrogation, Gaikwad confessed that he killed the person and used his own car to dump the body, said police inspector Indrajeet More of unit 4.
Both have been arrested under the charge of murder and several other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. They were produced in court and remanded in police custody till October 14.
Surjitt Sahani
