20 years after he killed garment trader, man held

The garment merchant identified as Deepak Rathod, who hailed from Delhi, had come to Mumbai with Rs 1.3 lakh cash for business-related work. “Rathod used to teach Rai driving in Delhi,” said a police officer. They came to Mumbai on March 31, 2003 after which they checked into Hotel Nest near Vile Parle railway station.

At around 10 am on April 3, 2003, room service staff went and knocked on the door but as there was no response, the staffer informed his manager after which they opened the room using a master key.

They found Rathod in a pool of blood after which they informed the police. As Rai, who had checked into the hotel with Rathod, was missing the police started looking for him.

The police repeatedly went to his native place in Bihar but they could not get any lead. Recently the investigators visited his village again and took down the phone numbers of all his friends, relatives, neighbours and parents.

“We studied the call data record of each phone number when we found that some of them were repeatedly getting calls from one mobile phone. The number belonged to one Atul Kedia,” said an investigating officer.

The police team from Santacruz police station then went back to the village and questioned them again when they came to know that the number belongs to the suspect that they had been looking for the past 20 years. Subsequently, a team from Santacruz police station was sent and he was arrested from a sweet shop in Thane.