Solving Crime: How a dormitory stakeout and a heavy voice led police to crack Titwala rape-murder case

The woman’s cries for help alerted the residents of nearby Nalimbi village, who rushed to the spot and informed the police. The Thane rural police swung into action. As they began tracking the woman’s mobile phone, its location kept shifting across areas near Ambernath, Badlapur, and Ulhasnagar. The police eventually traced the stolen phone to a man, who told them that he had bought it from an auto rickshaw driver, Sanjay Siddharth Narwade.

The police believed they had their suspect. Meanwhile, the investigation team also found a connection to another case from the previous year in nearby Ambernath, where a couple was robbed at gunpoint. In this case, when the man confronted the attacker, who tried to molest the girl, he shot him in his palm and fled. When the police tried to trace this woman’s mobile phone, the person who had it said that he too had purchased it from a rickshaw driver.

The police soon prepared a sketch of the accused based on the woman’s description. It was then that they got a critical lead—Narwade had asked the man who bought the phone to meet him at a dormitory or lodge in Ulhasnagar for some mobile phone-related payment. The team stayed there undercover for a few days. By March 9 that year, they were convinced that he would not show up. But the breakthrough came unexpectedly.

A constable and a police officer of the Thane Rural police crime branch were talking about finding another place to stay when a man sleeping a few beds away spoke in a deep voice, saying they could get a room in Ulhasnagar Camp no 5. The man went back to sleep.

According to the police, that moment changed everything. The man’s deep and heavy voice caught their attention, as victims in both cases had described the accused as having a heavy voice.

Stealthily, the policemen took the man’s photographs while he slept and sent them to the local police, who later showed the images to the victims for identification. An hour later, the policemen received confirmation. But, by then, the man sensed something amiss and fled, leaving behind his belongings, which included a German-made seven-round revolver.

Acting on a hunch that the man would return for his belongings, the policemen decided to stay back at the dormitory. Their efforts paid off when he came back. When the police closed in on him, he started running, prompting a kilometre-long chase before he was caught and arrested on March 11 of that year.

Narwade was booked by the Kalyan Taluka police station on charges of murder, rape and robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt of the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Arms Act.

During the probe, the police found that Narwade hailed from Jalna in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region. He had allegedly left his house with some money he had stolen and procured the gun from Aurangabad. He bought an autorickshaw with the rest of the money. The police said that Narwade never stayed at one address and preferred to live in rented rooms. He allegedly targeted couples on secluded stretches in the dark.

Rejecting Narwade’s bail plea, an additional sessions judge in Kalyan noted on March 14, 2024, that the offence registered against him was “serious in nature” and that the “possibility of tampering evidence and pressurising witnesses, so also creating hurdles during trial cannot be ruled out”.

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