Solving Crime: How a new commissionerate tracking cold cases solved 28-yr-old murder of five from a family

Hence, after the new police commissionerate was inaugurated under the leadership of Sadanand Data, thanks to adequate police presence, an attempt was made to take a relook at cold cases.

One of the cases that the police came across was one in November 1994 when a woman along with her four children had been murdered at their residence in Kashimira.

A total of three accused were alleged to have been involved in the murder of Jagranidevi Prajapati (27) and her four children, all of whom had then gone missing. The case had remained unsolved ever since.

When Aviraj Kurade, took charge as crime branch (unit I) senior inspector at the MBVV Commissionerate, he asked for a list of all major undetected cases to be compiled.

A total of 11 cases were found including this case.

Kurade said that Prajapati’s husband too passed away in an accident in 2006.

The police decided to study the case and found that the accused were from Uttar Pradesh. A police team went there in June 2021 and started collecting information about the accused with help of the UP Special Task Force (STF).

Following investigation including putting phones on surveillance, the police found that one of the accused Rajkumar Chauhan alias Kalia was in Qatar.

After getting details about his passport, the police got a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against him.

This worked when the MBVV police received intimation from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj international airport in December last year that Chauhan had been detained when he was coming to the city.

The police found that Chauhan had accompanied accused siblings Anil and Sunil Saroj who resided in the same area as the deceased.

Once one of the accused held the hand of Jagranidevi which led to a fight between the brothers and the family. There was another fight later as well following which the accused decided to take revenge.

“One day when Jagranidevi’s husband left the house, the accused entered the house and murdered all five, disposed of their blood-stained clothes and fled from the spot and were missing till this day,” Kurade added.