Thane teacher killed in property grab, accused forced her to sign forged will
Police have arrested three men for allegedly killing a 53-year-old school teacher and LIC agent in Maharashtra's Thane district in a bid to grab her
Police have arrested three men for allegedly killing a 53-year-old school teacher and LIC agent in Maharashtra's Thane district in a bid to grab her property, officials said on Wednesday. Investigators alleged that the accused forced her to sign forged property papers and a fake will before killing her. The victim, identified as Sangita Maruti Chandanshive, was unmarried and had gone to Shahapur for official work on July 14. She was reported missing on July 15 after she did not return home, police said. Read Full Story Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Amarsingh Jadhav said, "Her body was subsequently found on July 16 along the Sinnar-Ghoti road under the jurisdiction of Wadivarhe police station in Nashik district, following which a case of murder and destruction of evidence was registered." He said parallel investigations by the crime branch using CCTV footage, technical analysis and an informant network led police to Digambar Bhaguji Awhad, 48, a real estate broker from Asangaon, and Tushar Muralidhar Ratnaparkhi, 52, a driver from Ambivli.
During questioning, police found that Awhad and Ratnaparkhi, along with Santosh Ramesh Jadhav, 40, from Nashik and Vinodchandra alias Santosh Pandey from Ambivli, had allegedly conspired to kill Chandanshive. Police said the accused lured her to a rented flat in Asangaon on the pretext of buying an LIC policy. They allegedly prepared a false will naming Awhad and Ratnaparkhi as beneficiaries to her properties, assaulted her, forced her to sign the documents and then suffocated her to death. Jadhav said, "After murdering her, the accused transported her body in a car and dumped it near a college along the Sinnar-Ghoti road in Nashik to conceal the crime." Senior inspector Ajit Shinde of crime branch unit-3 in Kalyan told PTI that the third accused, Santosh Ramesh Jadhav, was arrested by Nashik police on Wednesday, taking the total number of arrests to three.
Police are trying to trace the fourth accused, Vinodchandra alias Santosh Pandey. The case centres on an alleged plot to seize the teacher's property by
using forged documents and then disposing of her body to cover up the crime. Ends
The BriefWire