Pavement-dweller found dead with head smashed

A 60-year-old pavement-dweller was found dead with his head smashed using a concrete block near Mahalaxmi railway station in Mumbai, police said on Sunday. He was found dead on Saturday morning by his wife, who was sleeping nearby, they said.

''Victim Naresh Shinde and his 55-year-old wife were sleeping on the footpath near the railway station. Around 5 am on Saturday, when his wife woke up, she was shocked to see him lying in a pool of blood with his head smashed with a concrete block,'' a police official said. On being alerted, a police team came to the spot and rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead before admission, he said.

A case under IPC section 302 (murder) has been registered against an unidentified person at N M Joshi Marg police station. ''The motive behind the crime is yet to be known,'' he said.