Mumbai: Man who claimed his wife had 'run away' confesses to her murder

The mysterious case of a missing woman was solved recently, when the police discovered that her husband had murdered her and disposed of her body weeks after he married her in 2013. The Oshiwara police had launched the investigation as part of Mission Muskan, Mumbai police's initiative to trace missing persons.

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The accused has been identified as Sunil Kagda (30), a part-time sweeper and auto rickshaw driver and a resident of Anand Nagar in Oshiwara. According to the police, Sunil had married the victim, Rama Kagda (22), in 2013. Both had already been married at the time, but got into a relationship and decided to marry each other.

A few weeks after the wedding, however, Rama was nowhere to be seen. Whenever her family or anyone else enquired of her whereabouts, Sunil simply told them she had eloped with another man. This roused the suspicions of Rama's mother, who decided to lodge a missing complaint with the Oshiwara police in March this year.

The truth
Mumbai Police recently launched Mission Muskan, an initiative to help trace missing persons and reunite them with their families therefore, bringing smiles to their faces. Each police station has a unit comprising 2-3 cops dedicated to this initiative.

At Oshiwara police station, when this team went over the list of missing persons, they noticed that Sunil had never come to the police station for enquiries related to his wife's missing complaint. The team contacted Sunil again and asked him to show up at the police station for enquiries.

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When Sunil failed to report to the police station despite having been summoned several times, they went to his residence and picked him up. It was during this questioning that he confessed to having murdered his wife. The cops were shocked to learn that Sunil had murdered his newly-wed wife weeks after the wedding.

Sunil told them they had ugly spats almost every day and, fed up of the daily bickering and arguments, he plotted her murder. Accordingly, Sunil planned a trip to visit temples in Pune and Nashik. He got along a friend, identified as Bhali, and also borrowed his red car.

The trio left the city in the evening and stopped at a restaurant on the outskirts to have dinner. Thereafter, they resumed the journey and also purchased petrol on the way. When they were near Bhiwandi, Sunil choked Rama to death with his hands.

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Sunil and Bhali then decided to get rid of the body and, after reaching Bhiwandi, dumped the corpse near a pipeline, poured petrol over it, and set it on fire. After learning these details, Oshiwara police verified the details with the Narpoli police in Bhiwandi, who told them they had registered a murder case after finding a partially burnt, unidentified body in 2013.

"We have arrested the accused on murder charges. The accused was nabbed after the missing complaint was lodged. All credit goes to the detection staff," said Subhash Khanvilkar, senior police inspector, Oshiwara police station.