Her murder sparked public outrage, triggered debate, and ultimately led to the conviction of a former police inspector, but on record, Assistant Inspector Ashwini Bidre Gore is still “alive”. The administrative anomaly has caused the Gore family to run from one office to another seeking intervention, but finding no relief.
“The entire administration is currently trying to show that Ashwini Bidre was not murdered but is alive,” her exhausted husband Raju Gore wrote in a letter on February 6, yet again seeking authorities’ intervention. “Therefore, now we are completely disappointed….as a last resort, we are now requesting that instead of suffering further injustice, we, my daughter and I, be allowed to euthanise.”
Gore has reasons to be anguished. On April 21 last year – nine years after his wife, 37, employed with the Navi Mumbai police, went missing — a Panvel sessions court sentenced former police inspector Abhay Kurundkar, 61, and two others to seven years. Since they had already spent that time as undertrials, they were released from jail.
Kurundkar, who was in a relationship with Ashwini, was proved to have killed her after she pressed him to marry her. Though her body was never recovered, the court held that circumstantial evidence conclusively established that she was killed at Kurundkar’s residence, her body dismembered and disposed of in a creek.
Ten months later, family members say that the authorities continue to stall registering her death, citing the possibility of a stay or reversal of the trial court’s order. This means that the family’s access to service-related financial benefits from the police department is now blocked.
The administrative anomaly has caused the Gore family to run from one office to another seeking intervention, but finding no relief.
Since the sentence last year, the family says it has written “28 times” to various authorities, even addressing his letters to the President of India, Chief Justice of India and Bombay High Court, seeking their intervention. “I was first made to go from one office to another,” Gore, a farmer and a former Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activist, tells The Indian Express. “Then I was informed that since the matter is pending before the judiciary, they cannot issue a death certificate… I told them there cannot be a stay on death.”
The Indian Express has reached out to both civic bodies for a response.
Passing the buck
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Gore says he first approached officials at Hatkanangale tehsil in Kolhapur district, where the family hails from, and later the Panvel Municipal Corporation — where Ashwini lived — and the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation, where police alleged her body was disposed of.
On July 23, 2025, the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation responded that “only on the basis of the judgment, the death certificate cannot be given”.
“There is a possibility that there will be an appeal filed against the sessions court order. Therefore, only on the basis of the judgment, the death certificate cannot be issued. Directions can be sought before the appropriate court to give directions to the Corporation,” the communication, which The Indian Express has accessed, said.
The Panvel civic body informed Gore in May 2025 that the alleged place of death fell outside its jurisdiction. The Hatkanangale panchayat said no court had directed it to issue a certificate, though it acknowledged that seven years had passed since she went missing.
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Under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, deaths in India are ordinarily registered on the basis of medical certification, hospital records or police documentation.
Where a person has been missing for seven years and has not been heard of by those who would naturally have heard from them, Section 108 of the Indian Evidence Act allows a court to presume that the person is dead. However, such presumption typically requires a declaratory order from a competent civil court before local authorities act upon it.
In cases involving murder convictions without recovery of a body, officials often seek specific judicial directions to shield themselves from administrative complications if the conviction is later overturned on appeal.
In Ashwini’s case, while the sessions court concluded she was murdered and convicted the accused, it did not issue a specific direction to any local authority to register her death.
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As a result, despite a criminal court’s finding that she was killed in 2016, the absence of a postmortem report or recovered remains has created procedural hesitation within the civil registration system.
On February 11, 2026, the Kolhapur circuit bench of the Bombay High Court, in response to the letter seeking its intervention, observed that the matter falls within the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court.
The wait
While convicting Kurundkar – a decorated police officer who won the president’s medal in 2017 – the Panvel court recommended that the District Legal Services Authority in Raigad determine compensation for Ashwini’s daughter. However, Gore says there has been no follow up.
He also claims that though an appeal has reportedly been filed by Kurundkar against the conviction, he has not been informed of its current status.
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Ashwini was last seen alive outside a railway station on April 11, 2016. After the crime surfaced, police conducted extensive searches in Vasai creek with assistance from the Indian Navy and private divers, but no remains were found.
As public pressure mounted, the case was raised in the Maharashtra Assembly and in December 2017, Kurundkar was arrested. While passing the sentence last April, the Sessions Court had expressed shock over how Kurundkar was recommended for a President’s medal after he was accused in the murder case.
The administrative anomaly has caused the Gore family to run from one office to another seeking intervention, but finding no relief.