26-year-old held for murder of 70-year-old in Vashi

The body of the deceased, identified as Bababbai Shantibai Kamble, was found in a gunny bag on the morning of August 2.

The body found in a gunny bag behind Inorbit mall, suspected to be of a woman, has been identified as a 70-year-old from Govandi who was killed by a 26-year-old man when she resisted a rape attempt, officials said.

Image for representation. (File photo)

The body of the deceased, identified as Bababbai Shantibai Kamble, was found in a gunny bag on the morning of August 2 while the investigations revealed that she was killed on the night of July 29. She was stabbed with a bottle on her neck and then hit on her head with a stone.

Apart from the tattoo on the wrist of the deceased, the police had no primary clue. “While we looked for the missing person’s complaint in the police stations in Mumbai, we found one, of a 70-year-old lady with a description of a similar tattoo. The family of the missing lady was asked to identify the body,” police inspector Pramod Toradmal from Vashi Police Station said.

The police interrogated around 250 people and examined around 350 CCTV footage and found the video clip of the victim going towards Inorbit mall with an unidentified man on the day of the incident.

Using the sketch of the accused made with the help of CCTV footage, the culprit was nabbed. To hide his identity, he had cut his hair and threw away his bag which was seen in the footage.

“The accused is a homeless man who usually slept under Sanpada bridge and loitered around railway stations. On July 29, the deceased lost her way home in Govandi and ended up reaching Vashi wherein the accused saw her. In the pretext of giving her food to eat, he asked her to accompany him. He took her to the isolated area under the flyover, behind Inorbit mall and tried to sexually abuse her, which she resisted. The accused then stabbed her on her neck with a broken glass bottle lying nearby and then hit her head with a stone and then dumped the body in a gunny bag lying in the garbage bin,” senior police inspector Ramesh Chavan from Vashi police station said.

The accused was arrested on August 22 from the Vashi Railway station area and is in police custody till August 27.