3 min readMumbaiJun 4, 2023 03:36 PM IST
First published on: May 30, 2023 at 07:54 PM IST
The Mumbai police Tuesday claimed they have solved the recent murder of a 32-year-old man in Kandivali.
The police have arrested the accused from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh for his involvement in the incident.
The accused, Rohit Pal, 23, allegedly shot Manoj Chauhan, a resident of Laljipada slum, in the Ekta Nagar area of Kandivali West around 7.45 am Sunday.
The bullet hit Chauhan on his head and he collapsed to the ground. The police rushed him to Shatabdi hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
Satyanarayan Choudhary, joint commissioner of police, law and order, Tuesday said: “Pal had an affair with Chauhan’s wife and in order to get rid of him he shot him dead Sunday. We have arrested him from UP and are further investigating the matter. We are also checking if the deceased person’s wife was involved in the murder.”
Pal, a Class 12 dropout, is from Prayagraj, UP where the maternal side of Chauhan’s wife resides.
Chauhan, originally from Jaunpur, was living in Mumbai alone and used to work in an imitation jewellery unit.
“In December last year, Chauhan and his family had assaulted Pal after he had entered their house to meet Chauhan’s wife,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 11) Ajay Bansal said.
Police officials said that Chauhan had got to know about his wife’s affair with Pal and had been asking her to come to Mumbai and stay with him.
“Pal bought a country-made firearm from Prayagraj for Rs 5,000 and practised operating it near the Ganga river, and then came to Mumbai one day before the incident. He did the recce of the place where Chauhan was living and decided to murder him early morning at a narrow lane…” DCP Bansal said.
After shooting Chauhan, Pal escaped to Prayagraj in the Pawan Express. In order to dodge the police, he changed his clothes a number of times en route Prayagraj.
The police analysed Chauhan’s phone call details, his wife’s phone call details and zeroed in on one phone number Pal was using.
“Pal had also made a phone call to Chauhan’s wife at 7 am. This number’s location was also found to be in the Kandivali area on the day of the incident. We zeroed in on the number,” said Inspector Deepshika Ware of Kandivali police station.
The phone of the suspect was found to be switched off. At 4 pm, the police found the location of the phone to be somewhere in Nashik. The police then zeroed in on CCTV footage of a railway station and discovered that the suspect was on a train.
“Around 10-12 teams of policemen were working on the case. We chased the accused on the train and the moment he got off at Naini railway station in Prayagraj, we caught him,” said Rajiv Jain, additional commissioner of police, north region.
The accused has been remanded in police custody till June 2 by a city court, said Dinkar Jadhav, senior inspector of Kandivali police station.
In a CCTV footage, the assailant was seen walking behind Chauhan, who was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and later taking out a firearm and shooting him from a distance of around five feet. 
Share
