Decomposed body of a woman: Daughter’s stalker killed 40-year-old in Sewri, arrested

The Sewri police officials said the accused killed the woman out of revenge for marrying her daughter, whom he had a crush on. The woman had even registered a case against Shaikh after he had earlier misbehaved with her daughter, for which he was sent to jail for three years

MUMBAI: Nearly twelve days after a 40-year-old-woman’s decomposed body was found behind BPCL in Sewri, the police said they have arrested the murderer on Friday, identified as Shehjada alias Ramjan Rafi Shaikh, 37, a resident of Wadala East.

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The Sewri police officials said the accused killed the woman out of revenge for marrying her daughter, whom he had a crush on. The woman had even registered a case against Shaikh after he had earlier misbehaved with her daughter, for which he was sent to jail for three years.

When he came out of the prison he found the victim had got her daughter married and that further angered him, and he decided to kill her. On January 22, 2024, the Sewri police had found a decomposed body of the woman behind BPCL near Tik-Tok point in Sewri in trees.

“The accused had damaged her face so that she could not be identified. The postmortem had indicated her age to be around 40 years and the reason for death was a head injury,” said the police officer.

Later with the help of her bangles, we started checking around the nearby places. Eight teams were formed for the same by the additional commissioner of police, South Region, Abhinav Deshmukh and DCP, Sanjay Latkar.

“We checked details of around 162 missing women, and 1,000 posters were pasted in Sewri and Wadala areas. More than two hundred women staying on pavements were questioned as the women we suspected stayed on streets. With the help of her bangles, she was identified to be a resident of Mumbai Central. Her daughter even identified her,” said the police officer.

Upon questioning, the daughter told the police about Shaikh. They suspected Shaikh as he was earlier booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) after the accused had fled with the victim’s daughter by the CSMT Railway police.

“The girl was then a minor, so he was booked under POCSO after the mother lodged a case. Now after three years, he came out of jail and then learnt that the minor daughter who had now turned major got married to another youth at her mother’s request. So, he then befriended the mother, took her out and then allegedly killed her by smashing her head with a stone,” said the police officer.