Titwala resident arrested for killing 22-year-old daughter

Accused disapproved of her boyfriend; lower part of body found in duffel bag

Gruesome end: A Thane Crime Branch officer displays the picture of Princy whose dismembered body was found by an autorickshaw driver near Kalyan station on Sunday.

The Thane Police Crime Branch on Monday arrested the father of a 22-year-old woman, whose dismembered body was recovered from a duffel bag in Kalyan.

According to the Crime Branch officials, the matter came to light when an autorickshaw driver, who picked up a passenger from outside Kalyan railway station at 5.25 a.m. on Sunday, sensed a foul smell emanating from the back seat. When he asked the passenger about it, the man got off the vehicle and fled. The driver opened the bag and found the lower part of a body from the waist down. He then reported the incident to the police.

The Mahatma Phule Chowk police registered a case of murder against unknown persons and started examining CCTV footage at Kalyan station. The Crime Branch, which was also probing the case, scanned the footage and spotted two men carrying the duffel bag out of a local train. The police then followed their movements and tracked one of them to Titwala.

Deepak Deoraj, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Thane Crime Branch, said, “We circulated the stills from the footage among our network of local informants. On Monday afternoon, police constable Sanjay Babar, attached with the Unit I, received a tip-off that one of the two suspects was Arvind Tiwari, a 47-year-old resident of Titwala. We sent a team to Malad, where he works at a logistics firm, and picked him up.”

Sources said Mr. Tiwari broke down and confessed to the crime during questioning. He said the victim was his daughter Princy and he killed her in their house on Sunday night as he disapproved of her boyfriend. Mr. Tiwari was arrested and charged with murder and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code.

Hunt for missing suspect

A Crime Branch officer said, “We are trying to trace and apprehend the second man seen with Mr. Tiwari in the CCTV footage. The exact sequence of events also needs to be ascertained before we can disclose any more details about the case. Attempts are under way to find the remaining part of Princy’s body. Now that the main accused is identified, we will start a new search, beginning with the CCTV footage around the Tiwari residence. We can then get a better picture of his movements from Sunday to Monday. His cellular movements are also being analysed.”

Meanwhile, a separate team is making inquiries with Mr. Tiwari’s family members to find out if Princy’s relationship was indeed a bone of contention or if there is another motive behind the crime, sources said.

An officer, who is part of the investigating team, said, “Mr. Tiwari keeps making different claims in his interrogation. All of them need to be verified so that the actual facts can be ascertained. At one point, he claimed that his accomplice was a co-passenger who had helped him carry his heavy bag. As the man is only seen briefly with him, the claim might be true but we cannot assume it as a fact till the suspect is traced and questioned.”

The police on Monday conducted an exhaustive search of the Tiwari residence but refused to comment on what was recovered. The police suspect that the remaining part of Princy’s body was discarded along the tracks between Titwala and Kalyan.

The officer said, “It is possible that Mr. Tiwari boarded the train from Titwala with two bags, each containing one half of the body, and threw one off the train. He might not have had a chance to do away with the second bag as people could have boarded the train. He might have been unwilling to take a chance in front of them.”