API Ashwini Bidre case: Crime Branch files second charge sheet filed

Navi Mumbai: A 500-page supplementary charge sheet was filed on Saturday by Navi Mumbai Crime Branch at Panvel court in the case pertaining to the disappearance and murder of Assistant Police Inspector Ashwini Bidre. The first charge sheet was filed in February by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Zone II Prakash Nilewad.

On February 27 a supplementary FIR was added to the charge sheet, with sections pertaining to murder (302) and and causing disappearance of evidence of offence (201), after Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Nilesh Raut and his team arrested key accused Abhay Kurundkar’s childhood friend and the fourth accused Mahesh Manohar Falnikar who spilled the beans on the murder. The supplementary charge sheet includes statements of 75 witnesses, a senior Crime Branch official said.

“The charge sheet mainly consists of circumstantial and technical evidences. Call details and location of three accused — Kurundkar, Falnikar, and Kurundkar’s driver, Kundan Bhandari — have matched with that of Ms. Bidre. The shop from where the weapon was purchased has also been identified and the statement of shopkeeper is recorded. The severed body of Ms. Bidre was dumped into Vasai creek by attaching weights of 25 kg metal blocks. The shop from where these weights were purchased has also been identified,” the officer said. According to a police source, the wood cutting power saw used to severe the body was not recovered but another weapon, used in the murder was recovered from an orderly of Mr. Kurundkar. The orderly is one of the witnesses in the case, said the source.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kurundkar’s advocate plans to move a bail application at Alibag court by next week. While Mr. Kurundkar and second accused Rajesh Patil are lodged at Taloja jail, Mr. Falnikar is at Alibag jail and Mr. Bhandari at Thane jail.