Mumbai: A 21-year-old labourer from Murshidabad in West Bengal was arrested for killing a 28-year-old labour contractor on June 8 after not receiving his salary for three months. The accused has been identified as Saheb Shaikh.
NM Joshi Marg police officials said that Shabbir Alam Shaikh, 28, fell down from the fourth floor of Shah and Nahar industrial estate at Lower Parel.
An accidental death report was initially filed as it seemed like death by suicide. Later a 19-year-old worker Sandhya Raju Pawar informed the police that she had seen Shaikh getting assaulted and being pushed by a person.
“We then registered a case of murder and started investigating the case,” said Pratap Bhosle, senior police inspector at NM Joshi Marg police station.
A team led by assistant police inspector Amit Pawar and police sub-inspector Kiran Patil along with staff members was formed. The team scrutinised CCTV footage from the locality and found the identity of the accused, and later through technical evidence learnt that he had left for his native place in West Bengal.
“We reached his Mushidabad residence and found him missing. He had kept his phone with his wife and was hiding at different places.
After six days of gathering details and clues from local informants, the accused was arrested on June 17 and produced before a local court before being brought to Mumbai on transit remand,” said a police officer from NM Joshi Marg police station.
Saheb was produced before a local court which remanded him to police custody till June 27. Saheb in his statement to police officials said that he used to stay in Mumbai with his wife and kids.
But he had not earned since a complete lockdown was announced last year. On June 8, he went to meet Shabbir, his employer to ask for money as he did not have any cash to survive in Mumbai, said NM Joshi Marg police officials.
“He demanded his pending salary, but Shabbir refused to pay him. A fight broke out between the two and Saheb pushed Shabbir from the building. He also took Shabbir’s phone and disposed it in a lake to destroy evidence.
Later he took his wife and kids and fled to West Bengal, and started staying in different villages to evade arrest,” added the officer
