Navi Mumbai, May 21: A decomposed body of an unidentified woman aged between 15 and 18, was found inside a steel drum in a forest area off Palm Beach road at Nerul on Friday. The body was wrapped with a cloth and then tied with a nylon rope before putting it inside the drum, the police said.
The police suspect that the woman was murdered four to five days ago. Police said that the accused took the benefit of the cyclone and dumped the body after killing the woman.
The Nerul police have registered a case under sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the unknown person and started the investigation.
Suresh Mengade, deputy commissioner of police (zone 1) said, “A local resident spotted the body dumped around 50 feet away from the road, and informed us about it. Due to the cyclone, the local fishermen were unable to operate in the nearby creeks earlier this week. We believe, taking advantage of the situation, the accused killed the woman and dumped the body here at night.”
The police sent the body to a civic hospital in Vashi for postmortem. “We are now waiting for the postmortem reports to understand how the woman was murdered and when. We have alerted other police stations in the city to find out if they registered any missing person’s case in the past few days. Meanwhile, we have formed multiple teams to detect the murder,” said a police officer from Nerul police station.
