Pune: 4 held for killing teen, burning his body three months ago

PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad police on Monday claimed to have cracked a more than three-month-old murder case following the arrest of four persons based on a tip-off.
Police investigation revealed that the victim, Jasbir Singh alias Billu Virdi (19), and his brother, Sunny, had assaulted Neeraj Jhangyani (26) — one of the arrested suspects — on March 7. Later, the siblings patched up with him.
However, Jhangyani continued to nurse a grudge and murdered Billu with the help of his aides — Lalit Thakur (21), Yogesh Panjwani (32) and Harjotsingh Lohit (22), all residents of Pimpri — following a marijuana session on March 8.
The police said Billu, along with Jhangyani and the latter’s three aides, visited a cattle shed on Dairy Farm Road in Pimpri in the early hours of March 8 to smoke marijuana (ganja). Jhangyani and the three others throttled Billu following the session and later burned his body using dry grass and diesel.
The next day, the four youths returned to the spot and found Billu’s partly burned remains. They tried to burn the remains again, police said. Later, they collected the remains and threw them into Pavana river.
The four suspects rode their luck for almost three months as the police could neither trace Billu nor detect his murder. On Sunday, however, an informer tipped off inspector Rajendra Nilkalje of the Pimpri police that one “Billu Shaikh”, missing for the past few months, had been murdered. He also gave the officer the names of the suspects.
“We knew about the missing case of Billu Singh and after some verification, it was confirmed that the tip-off was about Billu Singh and not Billu Shaikh,” Nikalje told TOI. He said the police questioned Billu’s parents again and they, too, suspected the involvement of the four suspects.
“We immediately took them into custody and during their questioning, they admitted to their involvement in the murder,” Nikalje added.