Navi Mumbai: Decomposed Body Found Near Orion Mall In Panvel; Crime Branch Arrests Accused Linked To Murder Of Unidentified Man

Navi Mumbai: Even as the identity of a decomposed body found in Panvel is yet to be ascertained, Unit II of Navi Mumbai crime branch has traced and arrested the accused. The decomposed body of an unidentified man suspected to be in his late thirties was found in a dilapidated godown behind Orion Mall in Panvel on September 16. The accused was killed by strangulation but the face was beyond identification.

“The victim had no birth marks or tattoos that could help us identify him. He possessed no belongings as well. He was wearing a T shirt of ‘Allen’ institute but he was not a staff there. Even as his identification is still a mystery, our team has successfully nabbed the accused,” assistant commissioner of police (crime branch) Ajay Landge said.

While investigating the case, the police started backtracking the movements of the victim and the accused. “The biggest challenge was to identify which day the incident would have happened and at what time. We had footages of a week and since we had no idea when the murder would have happened, our team scrutanised all the footages and found that the incident happened on September 13, morning,” senior police inspector Umesh Gavali from Unit II, crime branch said.

The police got the footage of the man who entered the godown after the victim had entered and started finding his whereabouts. “We found that he was a labourer and eventually traced him in PAnvel itself and nabbed him. In further investigations, it was found that both the accused and the victim were strangers and had met each other on the same day itself,” Gavali added. The accused was identified as Dhiraj Raju Verma (27), a resident of Koliwada in PAnvel and originally from Satna in Madhya Pradesh.

According to police, on September 13 morning, both the victim and accused met each other at a country made liquor shop wherein they consumed alcohol and they paid for their respective alcohol. The duo then decided to eat Poori Bhaji from a nearby eatery but Verma had exhausted his money as he was yet to get any work for the day. The victim told him that he will pay for his snacks but after eating, the victim decided not to pay and the eatery owner abused and hit Verma for not paying for what he ate. Verma and the victim then started walking.

While Verma wanted to go to bus stand, victim who had told that he wanted to go to Mumbai, wanted to go to railway station and they chose a shortcut that goes to both the places. On the way, they saw the godown and decided to take a nap as they both were high. At the godown, they had a heated argument over the non payment by the victim for the snacks Verma ate and the victim started abusing Verma which irked him and he strangulated him with a cloth belt that he found there.

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To investigate the case, Unit II crime branch had made six teams comprising of PI Gavali, Assistant police inspector Pravin Phadtare, Ajit Kangude, police sub inspector Abhaysingh Shinde and others.

The case has been now handed over to Panvel City police wherein the case of murder was registered and they continue to investigate the matter further to ascertain the identity of the victim.