Solving Crime: How a GPay payment and an Expressway camera cracked a Mumbai cabbie’s murder

At the time, Mohammed Salim Ansari, 30, a cab driver in Mumbai’s Mankhurd, was reported missing by his family. Ansari was on a trip to Pune and had been in touch with his family during the trip until all communication suddenly ceased, his relatives informed the police. While checking his call detail records, the Mankhurd police found the last number to call his mobile phone. The number belonged to Aditya Wandhare, 20.

Based on Wandhare’s mobile location and other technical evidence, Police Inspector Liladhar Patil, Police Sub-Inspector Dinesh Shelke and other officials from the Mankhurd police station reached Pune. On June 20, the police located Ansari’s car in a garage. It was then that they learnt from the Kamshet police that an unidentified body had been found near the highway.

The body was that of Ansari’s, his family confirmed. With their victim identified, the police began looking for his murderer.
The Mumbai police soon traced Wandhare in Pune. He claimed that Ansari was his friend and he wanted to buy a car through him, which is why he had contacted him in Mumbai. But soon, Wandhare’s web of lies began to unravel, according to the police.

A police team, under the guidance of Sandeep Singh Gill, Superintendent of Police, Pune Rural, inspector Patil and his team from the Kamshet police station scoured the toll booth’s log and CCTV footage on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. In one of the clips, a truck was seen towing Ansari’s car away. The police got the truck’s registration number and interrogated the truck driver, who gave them Wandhare’s mobile number, saying he had requested the service to tow the car.

The police then questioned the garage owner, who also confirmed Wandhare’s identity. Wandhare was then interrogated by the Mumbai police as well as their counterparts in Kamshet. He allegedly confessed to the murder, following which he was arrested.

“Wandhare was handed over to the Kamshet police as the murder case was registered there. The knife was also recovered from Wandhare’s Pune home. The postmortem report, forensic report and other circumstantial evidence confirmed Wandhare was behind Ansari’s murder,” SI Ravindra Patil said.

Wandhare is currently housed in Yerwada jail. The chargesheet is yet to be filed.

Cold-blooded murder: Police

Aditya Wandhare was a school dropout from Maharashtra’s Beed. In May, Wandhare travelled to Pune in search of a job. Unskilled and uneducated, he decided that the driving profession was a viable career option, the police said.

According to the police, Wandhare was drawn to app-based cab services and decided to hire a car from another city and steal it by threatening the driver at an isolated location. It was this plan that allegedly led him to Mumbai.

In Mumbai, Wandhare hired Ansari’s cab for a trip to Pune on June 18, as per the police. He paid Rs 400 to Ansari through Google Pay. Ansari left his home on the evening of June 16 but was in touch with his family via phone.

On the way to Pune, Ansari allegedly stopped the car near the Urse toll booth on the highway to attend to nature’s call, a police officer said. When Ansari returned, Wandhare allegedly stabbed him twice in his neck. Before Ansari could react, Wandhare stabbed him twice in his abdomen, Senior Inspector Ravindra Patil said.

Wandhare allegedly dumped Ansari’s body near the highway and started driving the vehicle on his own. After 1 km, however, the clutch plate of the vehicle got damaged. This forced Wandhare to hire a tow truck and move Ansari’s car to a garage in the Bhosari area of Pune, around 12 km away from the crime scene.

According to the police, Wandhare did not have any money, so he gave his mobile number to the tow truck driver and promised to pay him soon. He also allegedly urged the garage owner to fix the car, saying he would return soon to pick it up, a police officer said.