Woman, lover kill husband, dump body in mangroves

MUMBAI: A woman and her lover were arrested on Sunday for allegedly killing her husband in front of their children and dumping the body in a nearby mangrove on Saturday

MUMBAI: A woman and her lover were arrested on Sunday for allegedly killing her husband in front of their children and dumping the body in a nearby mangrove on Saturday. The two accused had even approached the police with a missing complaint, following which the police started their investigation and stumbled upon the crime. The clinching evidence was CCTV footage which showed the duo on a two-wheeler with the murdered victim ‘sitting’ between them while they were on their way to dump the body.

Woman, lover kill husband, dump body in mangroves

According to the Malwani police, the victim, Rajesh Chavan,30, was a daily wage labourer and was living in Malvani, Malad West, with his wife Pooja, 28, and their two children – a 10-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. A friend of the deceased, identified as Imran Mansuri (26), had been living with them for the past three months.

After Pooja and Mansuri went to the Malwani police to lodge the missing persons’ complaint, police began checking the CCTV footage of the area. While scouring through the footage, the investigating officers found footage of Rajesh ‘sitting’ between Pooja and Mansuri on a two-wheeler. This raised their suspicion and they decided to question the duo.

During the interrogation, the duo broke down and confessed to the murder. Pooja told the police she had slit the throat of her husband as he had found out about her affair with Mansuri. She revealed that on Saturday night, the duo made Rajesh drink liquor after which she killed him with a kitchen knife while the children were in the room. They then dragged the body to a two-wheeler, propped him up between them, covering his neck with a cloth and drove to a mangrove in Rathodi area of Malwani where they dumped the body.

Pooja said that three months ago, Chavan had allowed his friend Mansuri to live with them as he did not have any place to stay. Pooja and Mansuri soon developed an intimate relationship. When the deceased found out about their affair, they planned to kill him.

The police arrested the two on the charge of murder under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita on Sunday, hours after they confessed to the crime.

“The children are in shock and scared as their mother had threatened them not to say anything,” said a police officer from Malwani police station. “Although the woman had cleaned the house and their blood-soaked clothes, we have recovered the knife and the clothes,” added the officer.