Less than four hours after they brutally murdered a 20-year-old delivery boy in Mira Road on Monday, all nine assailants-mostly teenagers have been arrested by the crime branch unit (Zone I) of the Mira Bhayandar- Vasai Virar (MBVV) police.
The gruesome crime turned out to be the fallout of a petty dispute between the maternal uncle of the deceased with the accused over fuel at a petrol pump in Kashimira. The murder was reported from the M.T.N.L. Road area near Jangid Circle at 6:30 pm on Monday. A resident of Queens Park, the deceased Ankush Rajeshkumar Raj (20) worked as a delivery boy with an e-commerce platform. The assailants who were armed with swords and knives mounted a brutal assault on Ankush who sustained fatal injuries. He was taken to a hospital but was declared dead on arrival. Under the guidance of DCP (crime)- Avinash Ambure, a team led by Police Inspector-Aviraj Kurhade and API- Kailash Tokle immediately reached the spot and started investigations by activating their informer network. Based on a tip-off the police nabbed all the nine accused within four hours.
Investigations revealed that Ankush’s maternal uncle Harsh Raj had picked up a fight with a accused Ayush Bhanuprasad Singh (19) over breaking the queue at a petrol pump in Kashimira just hours before the murder. The deceased had intervened to resolve the issue. Irate over being hit and humiliated, Ayush called his friends and started searching for Harsh Raj to take revenge. However, they spotted Ankush near Jangid Circle and assaulted him leading to his death. Other accused include- Aqib Ansari (20), Shaikh Farhan Alam (18), Arman Ladaaf (18), Haider Pathan (18), Ashfak Mansoor (25), Mehtaab Khan (22) and Amit Singh (22)- all residents of Mira Road who are either students or working as deliverymen for e-commerce platforms. The Mira Road police have booked all the accused under section 302 of the IPC. Further investigations were on.
