The brutal murder of Gurusiddhapa Waghmare (50) aka Chulbul Pande has raised questions about the alleged huge spa sex racket’s network across the state.
Waghmare (50) belonged to a scheduled caste family of Ambedkar Nagar in Vile Parle. His father belonged to Solapur from where he migrated to Mumbai several years ago in search of employment. Finally he opened a shoe shop in Vile Parle. However, his son was ambitious and enamoured of high society lifestyle.
He studied a Marathi medium school on Dixit Road but dropped out after the fifth standard. He joined his father's shoe business. ``He had a knack of making friends and was good at networking," one his friends told the FPJ on Monday on condition of anonymity.
He further explained how Waghmare developed a daily habit of diary writing. “He got his first job as driver in 1995 with one Dr. Patankar, who used to maintain a diary regularly. Waghmare was highly impressed with this activity of the doctor and started maintaining a diary himself. That is how the Worli police found several diaries when they raided his apartment," a source added.
After working for around two years with Dr Patankar, joined the Shakti Ford showroom which shut in 2002. He then worked as a driver in reputed hotels like Taj, Orchid etc. He then stopped working as a driver as he found a new vocation as a police informer.
According to a source it was Santosh Sheregar, owner of Soft Touch Space where the murder took place recently who, in 2010, trained Waghmare to be a police informer and extort money by disguising himself as a police officer. Waghmare became well acquainted with the world of spas which doubled up as brothels and he alleged started extorting money from the spa owners. Money attracted him and Waghmare decided to over power Sheregar. Early, this year they parted ways.
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Sheregar and his friend Dhanraj then opened a string of spas across Maharashtra and minted money. However, soon they started having differences and Sheregar allegedly used Waghmare to tip-off the police about the spas which Dharanj opened without his knowledge.
Waghmare got the police to shut down the spas owned by Dhanraj. Furious Dhanraj then gave an allegedly fake complaint to the police against Waghmare and he went behind bars for over two months. After that the relations between Sheregar and Waghmare turned sour.
From 2010 till December 2023 Sherekar and Waghmare were working and earning a good amount of money. From January 2024 both became rivals of each other. Waghmare informed the police about the ten spas being run by Sheregar in the island city. The police shut down four of them. Waghmare also passed on information about other spas to the police.
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Sheregar and other spa owners were upset that Waghmare's activities were impacting their business. It was then that Sheregar allegedly introduced Mary Joseph, one of his spa employee, to Waghmare. It was apparently a honey trap. Waghmare fell in love head over heels with Mary, who gave him a facelift by getting him to wear good clothes. Mary became so close to Waghmare that she even visited his home and made friends with his wife. All the while, she was reportedly squealing on Waghmare to Sheregar who generously rewarded her for her services.
Following the murder of Waghmare the spa community has heaved a sigh of relief. But the murder has placed pressure on the police to shut down on spas doubling up as brothels in MUmbai and other places.
