Kidnapping widow, son was an act of revenge: Police

80-year-old widow Rohini Kamble and her son Vishal were kidnapped in Mumbai over a property dispute. The main accused, Pranay Ramteke, a close relative, allegedly wanted a share of the family's five-acre land and bungalow in Pachgaon. Ramteke paid around ?10 lakh to the other accused to kidnap the mother-son duo. Rohini was rescued by the police, but Vishal is suspected to have been killed. Five people have been arrested in the case so far.

MUMBAI: The kidnapping of Rohini Kamble, the 80-year-old widow of retired deputy commissioner of police, Vasant Kamble, and her 44-year-old son Vishal appears to be an act of revenge by a close relative over a property dispute, the police said.

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Police officials said that the main accused, Pranay Ramteke, son of Rohini’s brother, worked as a caretaker of the Kamble family’s five-acre land and bungalow in Pachgaon in Kolhapur district. However, he was thrown out of the property after Vasant died and the mother-son duo shifted there in 2021.

The officials said that Ramteke was expecting a share in the property, as he was not paid anything after protecting it for years. Disputes had started after Vishal and his mother refused to give him any share of the land. And this could be the possible reason behind the kidnapping and the suspected murder of Vishal.

The officers said that Ramteke purportedly paid around ₹10 lakh to the other accused to kidnap the mother-son duo.

The Chembur police have arrested five persons in this case so far. The woman was rescued by the police, but her son probably has been killed by the accused. The police said the arrested persons have claimed that they have killed Vishal and dumped his body along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. The body is yet to be traced.

Rohini was rescued from a flat at Royal Palms in Aarey Colony where she was being illegally detained after being forcibly taken to various places over almost a month and tortured, purportedly, to obtain her signatures on property documents.

According to the FIR registered by Chembur police on April 21, 2023, Rohini’s sister Vinaya Fansalkar told the police that Rohini and Vishal had gone missing since April 4.

She informed the police that the mother-son duo had come to Mumbai on March 14 and stayed in Neelkamal Hotel in Chembur, but the two left the hotel around 11 am on April 4, without taking their belongings, but did not return and their mobile phones were found to be switched off.

Investigation revealed that the gang had kidnapped the mother-son duo on April 5 after taking them to Panvel under the guise of showing them some property and had held them against their will in a house there. They also revealed that they killed Vishal and then had taken Rohini to various places before detaining her in a flat at Royal Palms. A police team rescued her on Tuesday night.

Apart from Ramteke, the police have also arrested Rohit Amin Admane aka Musa Parkar, a Powai resident and Munir Amin Pathan, a suspended BEST bus driver, Raju Babu Darvesh, 40, a Mira Road resident and Jyoti Waghmare, 33, a Mankhurd resident.