Mid-Day
- Mobile records help nab killer, an estate agent in Panvel
Mumbai, Jun 28: Mobile phone records have helped the police solve the mysterious disappearance of two real estate consultants from Navi Mumbai last week. The details have now led the cops to a horrifying tale of murder.
Sandeep Patil, an estate agent at Pargaon village in Panvel, had killed property consultant Narvratan Bafna (48) and his advisor Dilip Thakre (54) with the help of his aides Babu Shaikh and Joshi after an argument at a farm in the village. Patil and his men then buried Bafna and Thakre in the same spot. Based on Patil's confession, the police on Saturday exhumed the two bodies. Bafna and Thakre, who were proprietors of Shubh Enterprises, had gone missing on the evening of June 19.
The police got details of Bafna's mobile phone calls from the cellphone company. They revealed that on the day Bafna went missing, he received calls from a Reliance mobile phone belonging to Patil, said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Nerul division) Punjabrao Ugle.
The cops nabbed Patil and after questioning him, he confessed he had murdered the two men with the help of his associates, who are absconding. According to Ugle, Patil knew the victims for a long time and even carried out land transactions with them. He alleged that the deceased owed him Rs 4.50 lakh as commission for a land deal. Since they didn't pay up, he killed them. The case was subsequently transferred to the Panvel police.
The murder
Senior Inspector Dilip Nalavde of Panvel police station said, "On June 19, the accused called up Bafna and told him that about 50 acres of land was on sale in his village. Bafna and Thakre visited the isolated farm in their Maruti 800 around 8 pm. Soon, an argument erupted over pending dues and Patil and his men stabbed Thakre to death, while Bafna was strangulated. Their bodies were buried in the farm."
The corpses were sent for an autopsy. A forensic expert revealed Thakre died of multiple stab wounds, but the cause of Bafna's death is yet to be ascertained. Bafna's viscera samples have been sent for chemical analysis.