Panvel murder case: Man gave contract of ₹3 lakh to murder wife, says police

The man was having an extra-marital affair with another woman and both of them hatched a plan to eliminate the victim

Navi Mumbai police on Monday arrested three persons for the murder of a 29-year-old digital marketing professional who was found murdered with her throat slit outside the Panvel Railway station last week on Thursday.

The husband and his girlfriend along with the latter’s employer were arrested. (File image)

The husband and his girlfriend along with the latter’s employer were arrested for their alleged role in the murder.

Police claim the murder plan was hatched by six people. Apart from the three arrested, the remaining ones were members of a gang who were given a contract of ₹3lakh.

According to sources from the team privy to the investigations, husband of the victim, Devvratsingh Rawat (32) was having an extramarital affair with Nikita Matkar (24) since the beginning of this year.

Within months of having an affair, Devvratsingh and Nikita got married in a temple in August this year.

Eventually, the victim, Priyanka Rawat, learnt about her husband’s marriage.

Nikita, who worked as a teacher in a private tutorial run by Pravin Ghadge (45) in Mankhurd, wanted to get Devvratsingh’s wife killed in order to live together with the latter.

Nikita and Devvratsingh then approached Ghadge to help them in murdering Priyanka.

Ghadge in turn introduced them to a gang from Buldhana who lived in Mumbai.

“The three in the gang executed the plan according to the instructions of Rawat and then fled to Buldhana. The contract was given for ₹3 lakh of which ₹2 lakh was paid. The case was solved after police investigated the call record details of the husband. After finding photos of Nikita and Devvratsingh in his phone, police interrogated both separately and Nikita spilled the beans”, the sources added.

“The murder happened on the night of September 15 at around 10pm right outside Panvel railway station. The Panvel Railway Police Force provided CCTV footage of the incident to Panvel police. Being night hours, the footage was not clear. The attacker’s face too was not very clear. We provided whatever was available,” Jasbeer Rana from Panvel RPF, said.

In the footage, the accused was seen waiting for the victim Priyanka. After she came out and was walking towards the auto stand, the accused is seen walking behind her and then slitting her throat from behind and then fleeing.

According to police, the trio accused who executed the murder, were following her right from Thane till Panvel.

The three from Buldhana have been identified as Rohit alias Shiv alias Rawat Raju Sonone (22), Deepak Dinkar Lokhande (25) and Pankaj Narendra Kumar Yadav (26).

Married for four years, Priyanka, a computer engineer, had started working in a Thane-based private firm as Digital Marketing professional a year back while her husband worked as sales manager in an e-commerce company.