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Death of Cox & Kings general manager: Family suspects foul play; Kalyan GRP to probe case
The Kalyan government railway police (GRP) are probing if there is any foul play in the death of Sagar Deshpande, the general manager of travel company Cox & Kings.
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The Kalyan government railway police (GRP) are probing if there is any foul play in the death of Sagar Deshpande, the general manager of travel company Cox & Kings.
On October 11, Deshpande left his Thane home in his car. When he did not return, his father filed a missing person’s complaint with the police. The next day, around 6.30am, an injured man was found on the tracks between Titwala and Khadavli stations. He was rushed to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. Kalyan GRP circulated his description among police personnel groups and on Saturday, Naupada police identified him as Deshpande. The police first filed an accidental death report after suspecting it to be a case of suicide. However, Deshpande’s family has raised suspicions over his death.
“We sent the body for post-mortem as the family is suspecting a foul play in the case,” said Valmiki Shardul, senior police inspector, Kalyan GRP.
The investigating officers have dusted Deshpande’s car for fingerprints to ascertain if he was alone on the day he went missing or if he was accompanied by someone. The four-wheeler was found metres away from the tracks at the railway crossing.
“As we have not found any eyewitness in the case, we are leaving no stone unturned,” said a police officer, adding that they are going through the CCTV footage of the cameras installed around the nearby areas. The GRP officers would also take help of the traffic police to obtain the CCTV footage to track the movement of Deshpande’s car after he had left his home on October 11.
Deshpande had worked with Cox and Kings for 10 years and had been asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED). There are allegations that the company had carried out fraud of approximately ₹20,000 crore. Earlier this month, ED had arrested Cox and Kings’s former chief financial officer Anil Khandelwal and internal auditor Naresh Jain.
