The Navi Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested a man from Nepal for killing a 65-year-old woman in Taloja.
According to the police, Shakunthala Thakur, a resident of Nagjhira village in Taloja, used to go to wash her clothes at a pond at a nearby quarry. On November 15, she left home as usual in the morning. But when she did not return after a long time, her family began a search and later found her body in bushes near the quarry.
“We started looking for people who frequented the pond. We found a witness who had seen one Vijaykumar Muneshwar Mandal going to the area on the day of incident. We then nabbed him and on interrogation, he revealed that he had murdered the woman,” a police officer privy to the investigation said.
The 30-year-old Mr. Mandal, a scrap dealer, told the police that around 15 days ago, when he had gone for a swim to the pond, the victim who was washing clothes had fought with her. The issue was about why he came to the quarry area if he was not working there. At the end of the fight, Mr. Mandal claimed, the woman abused him and also pelted stones at him.
Angered, the accused wanted to take revenge and hence he had been keeping a watch over her. On November 15, when he found her alone, he killed her by hitting on the head with a stone. Mr. Mandal then robbed the woman of her gold chain and fled.
The accused was arrested on November 17 by police inspector Giridhar Gore and his team from Unit II of the Crime Branch. The stone used in the murder was found near the quarry.
The accused has been charged with murder and robbery. He was produced before a court, which remanded him in police custody for seven days. The case is being further investigated by the Taloja police with whom the case is registered.
