Slain youth’s chopped pieces found from borewell

Rajkot: After five days of frantic excavation, the cops on Saturday managed to recover the chopped pieces of Devang Gadhvi, whose body was found dumped in a 60-foot borewell, on the outskirts of Mota Bhadiya village of Mandvi taluka in Kutch on February 19.
“The chopped pieces of the slain youth were found stuck in the borewell’s pipe. There were six pieces — head, torso, two hands and two feet. We also found the jacket, trousers, shirt and shoes of the deceased ,” an official from Mandvi taluka police station said.

Devang (20), a resident of Mota Bhadiya village, had been missing since February 12. Police booked two local bootleggers and arrested one of them for allegedly murdering Devang and trying to destroy the evidence.

According to the police, Devang, who had been involved in bootlegging, had left his house on February 12 and did not return. His family members lodged a missing person’s complaint with Mandvi taluka police station on February 13, following which a search operation was launched.

During investigation, police checked the mobile phone call records of Devang and found that he was in constant touch with listed bootleggers Rambhai Gadhvi and Khimraj Gadhvi, also from Mota Bhadiya village, before he went missing. Since Rambhai was already in jail for bootlegging since February 14, police detained Khimraj and interrogated him on Monday evening.

Police said that after hours of questioning, Khimraj confessed to murdering Devang along with Rambhai on February 13. He also told police that they had chopped Devang’s body into pieces and dumped it into a defunct borewell outside their village.

On being asked about the reason for killing Devang, Khimraj told police that the deceased had borrowed Rs 50,000 from Rambhai few months ago and had not returned it. On February 12, the two accused called Devang outside the village on the pretext of giving him some work and allegedly killed him.