MUMBAI: The decomposed body of a 54-year-old Mumbai
woman, who was allegedly pushed into a pit and
buried alive at
Sangameshwar in Ratnagiri three weeks back, was
found on Monday. Sangameshwar police handed over Smita Kusurkar’s body to her family on Tuesday. Police got custody of one of the two accused, Srikanth Ghadashi, and are interrogating him. The prime accused, a real estate agent, had allegedly given a supari of Rs 6 lakh to kill her.
Kusurkar, whose final rites were performed on Tuesday, worked for an insurance firm and was founder-president of Insurance Women’s Forum. Her husband, Chandrashekhar, who had lodged a missing person’s complaint with N M Joshi Marg police, said she was to go to Kalyan on July 11 and return in few days. She was buying a plot in Sangameshwar and had paid Rs 22 lakh for it. Kusurkar had earlier visited the plot and given the money to the real estate agent.
The Lower Parel resident, who used to work at Churchgate, took a train to Kalyan, and police said Ghadashi picked her up and they went to the see the plot. Police said Kusurkar fell into the a pit on the marshy land and the accused covered her with mud and stones, burying her alive. After the crime, the accused, from Sangameshwar, went home and Kusurkar’s phone went off.
Her family, who had not received any call for few days, approached N M Joshi Marg police, who shared all information, including details of the plot, with their Sangameshwar counterparts. Sangameshwar police, scanning her call records, got the number of the agent, who made frequent calls to her. But police could not trace him. Later, a police team scanned his call data records and found another number that was in constant touch with the agent and deceased. A police team landed at Ghadashi’s house and took him to the police station, where following sustained interrogation he spilled the beans. He told police he was told to pick up the woman and take her to the plot, where he buried her alive.
Ghadashi told police he was promised Rs 6 lakh but was paid Rs 3 lakh in advance by the agent. He had stolen her phone and dropped it in an ST bus, so its location kept changing frequently.
