Inspector Andhale, whose team located Yadav, described the murder accused as a well-built man with a short temper. “His family lives in Uttar Pradesh. He knows no one in Maharashtra and moves from one job to another,” he said. (Representational)

Arrested last week from Pune for murdering two of his colleagues at a Mira Road restaurant last week, Kallu Yadav (33) had joined work at the eatery as a waiter just weeks before the nationwide lockdown was announced. Yadav reportedly battered the restaurant manager, Harish Shetty (48), and another waiter, Naresh Pandit (52), with a shovel on May 30. Their decomposed bodies were recovered from a water tank on the restaurant premises on Friday.

According to police, in the first week of March extensive renovation had begun at Shabari Restaurant and Bar at Sheetal Nagar on Mira Road when Yadav had approached Shetty, for work. Investigations by Thane Rural District Police, so far, have also revealed that neither the manager nor restaurant the owner, Gangadhar Payade, had conducted a preliminary background check on Yadav, hiring him without so much as asking him his surname or about previous experience of working at a restaurant and taking a copy of his personal identification documents.

After the lockdown was announced on March 24, Yadav, Shetty and Pandit were the only employees to stay back as all others returned to their native villages, said Inspector Sandip Kadam of Mira Road police station.

On Saturday, district Superintendent of Police Shivaji Rathod said over the past three months Shetty and Pandit had forced Yadav to eat only rice and daal that he cooked for himself even as they feasted on takeout food. The police alleged that this is what prompted Yadav to kill his colleagues last week.

“On the night of the murders, after Shetty and Pandit had fallen asleep after drinking alcohol, Yadav picked up a shovel and hit the manager on his head. As Shetty did not instantly pass out, Yadav hit him again. The noise woke up Pandit but before he could react, Yadav struck him on the head and killed him instantly,” said Inspector Vyanakat Andhale of the local crime branch.

Yadav then allegedly dumped bodies of both men in a large water tank on the ground floor on the premises. Over the next few days, Yadav allegedly claimed to his employer that his colleagues returned to their villages without informing him. Seeing Yadav alone at the restaurant, on June 1 Payade locked the premises and shifted him to another restaurant on Mira Road, police said. The police claimed that Yadav fled to Pune instead.

The murders came to light June 4 night when the owner received a phone call from an unidentified man who claimed that Shetty and Pandit had been killed. The police believe that the phone call was made by Yadav, but are yet to understand the reason why he did that. Soon after the bodies were recovered, the owner told the police that he suspected Yadav.

SP Rathod said police were initially unable to locate Yadav as his employer had collected no details about him. “We did not have his phone number or Aadhaar card number. His employer only knew him as Kallu,” said Rathod. Using the location of the mobile phones of Shetty and Pandit, which were in Yadav’s possession, the police tracked him to Pune early Friday morning.

Yadav reportedly told police that he had killed two watchmen in Kolkata in 2003. “He also claimed to have spent five-and-a-half years in jail for the crime. We have written to the Kolkata Police seeking details of the case,” said Inspector Kadam. Yadav was also booked in the past in a case of assault in Pune’s Swargate locality, police said.

Inspector Andhale, whose team located Yadav, described the murder accused as a well-built man with a short temper. “His family lives in Uttar Pradesh. He knows no one in Maharashtra and moves from one job to another,” he said.