PUNE CITY police deployed drones and took the help of divers in the murder investigation they had initiated following the discovery of an unidentified elderly woman’s torso on the Mula-Mutha riverbed in Kharadi area of Pune.
A First Information Report in the case was registered on behalf of the police late on Monday by officials from Chandan Nagar police station. Following information received from locals, the police had on Monday morning recovered the woman’s torso from which the head, hands and legs are believed to have been severed with a sharp object. Investigators believe the torso was carried downstream by the river, which has significantly expanded the area under their probe in the case.
The torso was recovered from a location in Kharadi area on Mula-Mutha riverbed near a construction site. Police have said they have reason to believe the torso was carried downstream by the flooded river for some distance. The post mortem examination was conducted on Tuesday and initial findings pointed to the woman’s age being somewhere above 50 years. Pune City police had notified all police stations in the city and neighbouring jurisdictions for information on missing women.
Pune City Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar on Wednesday said, “We have deployed drones for imaging the surface of the river and to conduct searches along the stream. The purpose is to look for the missing body parts and also ascertain the point where the body could have been dumped into the river. Our teams have already started scanning footage from the security cameras along the banks of the river to look for suspicious movements with possible links to the murder over the last few days. We are also in contact with the irrigation department about information on the release of water. We are deploying divers to search the river.”
“One of the possibilities is that the kin of the deceased woman are behind the murder. So in that case, providing information about the missing person and someone coming forward to identify the body might not happen or they might be misleading. Primary examintion has ruled out sexual assault and the age of the woman might be between 50 and 60 years,” Kumar added.
Police have invoked Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions 103, which pertains to murder, and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence). Teams from Chandan Nagar police station and Pune City Crime Branch launched a joint investigation in the murder.
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