Less than 12 hours after they recovered the badly disfigured body of an 18-year-old youth from a rural area in Bhiwandi, the local crime branch (LCB) unit of the Thane (rural) police in association with their local counterparts apprehended a friend of the deceased for his alleged involvement into the gruesome murder on Sunday.
According to the police, the crime was the fallout of a fight between the duo over a debt settlement amounting Rs. 20,000. The body with multiple injury marks was recovered near a pipeline in the Pogaon village area of Bhiwandi on Saturday night.
Sensing the seriousness of the case, SP Dr. Shivaji Rathod deputed the LCB team to conduct parallel investigations. After ascertaining the identity of the deceased, special teams led by Senior Police Inspectors Vyenkat Andhale and Ram Bhalsingh under the supervision of Addl. SP Sanjay Kumar Patil, who are already overburdened with lockdown implementation duties, activated their core informer network.
Based on a specific tip-off, the police nabbed the accused who has been identified as Shahbaz Ansari (21). Investigations revealed that Ansari was asking the deceased to repay the Rs.20,000 he had lent him, last month. A heated exchange of words over the issue took a violent turn, when Ansari attacked his friend with a knife and smashed his head with a stone, before fleeing the spot.
“A case under section 302 and 201 of the IPC has been registered against the accused who has been remanded to custody till April 24,” said Andhale as further investigations were underway.
