Prime accused in murder of Mumbai man held from UP; calls to his wife help police trace him

Palghar, Mar 29 (PTI) The Palghar police in Maharashtra have arrested from Uttar Pradesh the prime accused in the case of kidnapping and murder of a Mumbai-based man, an official said on Friday.

The 27-year-old victim Sudhir Kunjbihari Singh, who resided in Kandivali, was kidnapped and murdered on January 12 this year, he said.
Although the prime accused – Rahul Pal alias Marda (24) – was on the run after the crime and stopped using a mobile phone, the calls made by him from UP to his wife helped the police track him down. With his arrest on Wednesday, the number of persons held in the case has gone up to four, he said.
“Singh was abducted in an auto-rickshaw by a group of persons, including Marda, and taken to Nalasopara, where he was fatally attacked with sharp weapons,” senior inspector Jitendra Vankoti of Pelhar police station of the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar police commissionerate.

Subsequently, a case was registered against the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 141 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), and 120B (criminal conspiracy), he said.

The victim had suffered nearly 40 stab wounds during the assault, assistant inspector Tukaram Bhople of Pelhar police station said.
A day after the incident, the crime detection unit of the Pelhar police arrested three suspects – Suraj Lakkhan Chavan (25), Sahil Tilku Vishwakarma (21) and Akhilesh Sunil Singh alias Akki (27) from the Sinhagad Road area in Pune, he said.

However, prime accused Marda was on the run. After receiving a tip-off that Pal was hiding in Chauri Bazar at Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, a police team was dispatched to apprehend him. On seeing the police team, he escaped into the jungle taking advantage of the darkness. But the police chased him and succeeded in nabbing him on Wednesday, the official said.

During the interrogation, the accused told the police that there was enmity between the main accused and the victim over some trivial issue.
There were challenges in tracing the prime accused as he had stopped using his mobile phone, but modern investigative techniques and his calls to his wife on her number obtained from his old mobile phone led the police in tracking him down, the official said.