Solving Crime: How a pair of forgotten red slippers helped cops nab the accused in 2013 Adit Ranka murder case

Sanghvi and Adit’s cousin Himanshu Ranka, both MBA graduates, were arrested in connection with the murder within two days.

Himanshu was acquitted by the sessions court in October 2017 for lack of evidence, while Sanghvi was convicted on charges of murder, kidnapping and destruction of evidence, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

According to police, after kidnapping the victim at Khetwadi Lane on May 13, 2013, Sanghvi made a ransom call to Jitendra from a nearby telephone booth, before proceeding towards Chembur. Sanghvi was also in telephonic contact with Himanshu during this time, said police.

After realising that his son had been kidnapped, Jitendra approached the police station and registered an FIR. The prosecution had claimed that after the accused, Sanghvi, got to know that a police complaint was lodged, he beat up Adit and then attacked him with a knife.

When Sanghvi noticed that Adit was alive despite the injuries, he lit a fire using a bundle of grass and pushed the boy into it, according to the prosecution. He then put Adit’s body back in the car, took the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and eventually dumped it on the side of the road, said police. Sanghvi was using a car belonging to a person who worked in Himanshu’s office, said police.

Police claimed that the accused, to ward off suspicion, had helped the distraught parents of the victim ‘search’ for their missing son. According to police, a day after the incident, while Adit’s father was on his way to the police station in the same Honda City borrowed by the accused, he spotted Adit’s red slippers in it and raised the alarm. Police seized the car and the items in it, which included the knife used to commit the crime. The blood-stained clothes of Sanghvi were also seized and the evidence was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory, which proved his involvement in the crime. Police also recovered Adit’s body, which was identified by the victim’s elder brother.

According to the prosecution, it was revealed during the probe that Himanshu and Sanghvi had incurred heavy losses while betting on IPL matches in 2013 and hatched a plan to earn ransom money of Rs 30 lakh.

Principal Judge S B Agarwal of the Sessions Court, while convicting Sanghvi for the murder in 2017, noted that “the child was murdered mercilessly”. Sanghvi was awarded life imprisonment and slapped with a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

However, the court acquitted Himanshu of all charges and observed, “It is quite possible that Sanghvi tried to gain benefit of knowing the prevailing situation from Himanshu naturally, without disclosing what he was up to at that time.”

On July 31, 2019, nearly two years after the sessions court sentenced Sanghvi to life imprisonment, the Bombay High Court granted bail to him citing ‘credence’ in his plea. In December 2017, Sanghvi had also filed an appeal in the HC against his conviction, which is still pending before the court.