Mumbai : Four arrested for murder of 23-year-old man ‘missing’ for a month

THE MUMBAI crime branch on Monday arrested four persons in connection with the alleged murder of a 23-year-old man who had gone missing a month back. The police have found that the deceased, Rajesh Chaupal alias Mandal, was killed by a man who suspected he was having an affair with his wife.

The accused were produced before a local court and have been remanded in police custody.An officer said that a missing person’s complaint was submitted by Chaupal’s father Gauri at Oshiwara police station on May 16.

The family was expecting Chaupal, who lived in the Jogeshwari area of the city, to visit Bihar and said the latter had booked train tickets too. However, when he did not reach home for more than a week and his phone remained switched off, the family member approached the police.

The Oshiwara police, meanwhile, transferred the matter to Azad Maidan police station after Chaupal’s call records were traced at CST.

During the investigation, the police found that one Surendra Mandal, who was known to Chaupal and had an office near CST, had suddenly left for his village. The police tracked down the man and questioned him.

“During sustained interrogation, Mandal claimed to have killed Chaupal and led the police to the spot near his office where he along with his two brothers, Shambhu Sadaya and Ram Kumar Sadaya, and one Vijay Kumar Mistry had dumped his body in a water tank at an under-construction building.

They accused had covered the body with 25 kg salt so that it did not stink,” an officer said.

The accused, police said, had called Chaupal at the site on some pretext. They had first hit him with a hammer, then tried to strangle him before stabbing him to death, the police said.

Mandal told the police that he suspected his wife was having an affair with Chaupal and he felt insulted after the news spread in his village. Of the four accused, three were arrested from Bihar while one was picked up from Karnataka, the police added.