Prime accused in Lonavala double murder arrested after 30 years

A man who allegedly murdered a couple in Lonavala around 30 years ago has been arrested by police after years of hiding under a different name. Avinash Bhimrao Pawar is accused of having strangled and stabbed Dhanraj Thakarsi Kurwa and Dhanlaxmi Dhanraj Kurwa before stealing gold and cash from their home. Pawar had changed his name to Amit Bhimrao Pawar and moved between several cities to avoid detection. He was finally tracked down by police to a MHADA Chawl in Tagore Nagar, Vikhroli East.

The crime branch on Friday arrested a 49-year-old man who had been in hiding ever since he allegedly murdered a couple in Lonavala around 30 years ago. During this period, he had shuttled between several cities and even changed his name to avoid capture, police said.

Prime accused in Lonavala double murder arrested after 30 years

According to the police, Dhanraj Thakarsi Kurwa, 55, and his wife Dhanlaxmi Dhanraj Kurwa, 50, used to run a shop outside their flat at Yeshoda Bungalow in Valvan Satyam Society. Avinash Bhimrao Pawar, 19, who hailed from Ahmednagar but was living with his grandmother in Lonavala, used to visit their shop regularly and that was how they knew him, a police officer said.

On October 4, 1993, Pawar along with two of his aides – Amol John Kale aka Tillu and Vijay Arun Desai – went to the couple’s flat with the intention of robbery. The trio then strangled the couple with a rope and later stabbed them with knifes before fleeing with gold and cash from the house, said Dayanand Nayak, police inspector at unit 9 of crime branch.

Pawar then left for Shirdi and stayed there for two days. Later, he went to Delhi and worked in a hotel for around a year, Nayak said. “Later, he went to Kasara in Thane and worked as a mechanic at a garage till 1996. In 1998, he went to Ahmednagar and worked as a driver-cum-staffer in a hotel. He married one Pramila, who hails from Lonavala, in 1999 and settled in Vikhroli.”

“While his two aides Kale and Desai were arrested, Pawar was on the run and in 2018, he was even declared a proclaimed offender,” the police officer said.

Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police, had been overseeing the investigation all along. The crime branch recently got a tip-off that Pawar was staying in a MHADA Chawl at Tagore Nagar, Vikhroli East, and a team led by Nayak picked him up.

Police officers said Pawar was working as a driver and had changed his name to Amit Bhimrao Pawar and was known among locals as AB Pawar.

“The accused initially claimed that he was not involved in any crime and neither did he remember anything as he had suffered a head injury in 1996. But when he was questioned repeatedly, he confessed to the killing,” Nayak said.

He has two sons aged 24 and 17. The police officers said his grandmother stayed at Valvan in Lonavala and the family used to visit her regularly, but Pawar would avoid it.

“His sons then started asking him about it. Tired, he confessed about the murders to his wife a few years ago,” another police officer said, adding in 1995, he had visited his hometown and officially changed his name from Avinash Bhimrao Pawar to Amit Bhimrao Pawar.

Raj Tilak Roshan, DCP, crime branch, said, “Pawar will be handed over to the Lonavala police.”

A case against Pawar under section 302 (murder), 120B (conspiracy), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered.