Raigad police solve murder case 4 days after finding body near bridge

NAVI MUMBAI: Four days after an unidentified body was found near a bridge in Khalapur, Raigad, the police arrested the murderer from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. There was no phone, wallet, or ID on the body, said a police officer. Investigators relied on CCTV footage and inputs from local informants to identify the deceased and suspects.

Around 1pm on Saturday, when the railway staff were patrolling near the Khopoli-Karjat railway line, they found a body, aged between 40 and 50 years, lying by the pillar of a nearby bridge. After investigation, the deceased was identified as Subhash Vishwakarma, a Ghatkopar resident who worked at Godrej Company in Khalapur. He had sustained fatal head injuries, said a police officer.

After the Khalapur police were alerted, they conducted a spot panchnama and registered a case under Sections 103(1) (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of false appearance) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

“After scanning multiple CCTV feeds, the team identified two individuals as suspects,” said additional superintendent of police Abhijit Shivthare. They learnt that one of them, Lavkush Raja Paswan, 24, abruptly stopped reporting to work at a nearby company after Saturday and returned to his native village in Uttar Pradesh. A local crime branch team of the Raigad police tracked down Paswan in Kulaha village of Unnao district and arrested him on Tuesday.

During interrogation, Paswan confessed to murdering Vishwakarma on Saturday, said another police officer. The two workers met each other recently and began drinking together after work. On the day of the murder, they were arguing near the bridge. Paswan, in a fit of rage, allegedly pushed him down the bridge and threw two large rocks at Vishwakarma’s chest and head. In an attempt to conceal the body, he then covered it with more rocks before fleeing the state, said police.

The accused is yet to be produced before a court.