Solving Crime: How it took ‘2 false leads’ and a ‘dupatta’ for Thane police to crack a toddler’s murder

On the morning of July 15, 2011, while Manish left for work and Sangeeta went for a job interview, Shweta and her mother were at home and looking after Shreyash. Around the same time, the grandmother went out in the common gallery to fill up water for the household just like her neighbours every morning, and Shweta left to play with her friends.

When Shweta returned home after a while and could not find Shreyas, she told her grandmother, and they started looking for the child. They also informed their neighbours. Prakash Shinde, who lived in the flat opposite the Nadages, and his family also joined them. The Shinde family was very close to Shreyash and liked him a lot, as he would often crawl up to their house, the police found out later.

Their daughter, Nandini Shinde, a young fashion designer, also learnt about Shreyash going missing, and joined the search for Shreyash. She first looked for the toddler in the corridor of her house and informed Ladage that Shreyash hadn’t come to their place and started looking for him at other places with them.

Nandini then called Sangeeta, who rushed back. Soon Manish also returned home, and the entire family and their neighbours looked for Shreyash in the society and nearby areas, but in vain.

After a few hours, the family approached the Kolsewadi police station in Kalyan. Considering the seriousness of the matter, inspector in-charge Jagdish Lohalkar registered a case of kidnapping and immediately formed search teams to trace the child. Since CCTV cameras were not common then, the police had to rely on human intelligence and their investigation skills.

First lead and a mystery bag

The police teams talked to the Nadages, the Shinde family, other neighbours, and building residents, and asked them if they had spotted anything unusual in the area recently. Nandini told the police about a tantrik or an occultist who had come to their society around six months ago, and that she had spotted him again a couple of days ago.

The police now had their first lead, and their teams started working on it and questioned dozens of residents, vendors, shopkeepers, and delivery boys about the tantrik, but the task yielded nothing. The police then suspected that Nandini deliberately gave them wrong information to waylay the investigation. Their suspicion deepened further when the next day they received information that Nandini had gone out of society carrying a bag. In the absence of any direct evidence, the police asked Sangeeta to call Nandini, who told her she had left for her friend’s place to hand over her bag. The police didn’t trust Nandini’s explanation, and a police officer went after her and intercepted her while on her way back.

When the officer asked her about the bag, Nandini told him she had given it to her friend and was returning home. The officer made Nandini call her friend, and spoke to her and asked her about the bag. Nandini’s friend confirmed to the officer that she had asked for the bag as she needed it. The friend also told the officer she could show them the bag. The police then apologised to Nandini for suspecting her.

Potential leads

As the police encountered the second dead end, Shreyash’s body was found at an isolated place near a diesel car shed in Kalyan, 48 hours after he went missing. Shreyash’s father was called to identify the body, and he confirmed it was of his son. The post-mortem examination showed the child died of strangulation, the police said.

After the discovery of the body, investigators came under tremendous pressure to crack the case as soon as possible. They searched the place around the spot where they had found Shreyash’s body. During the search, the police found multiple articles as “potential leads”, including a yellow-coloured scarf (dupatta). The police showed all the articles and the scarf to Sangeeta, everyone in the society, and his neighbours. But no one could identify any of the articles, leading the police to another dead end.

A day after performing their son’s last rituals, Sangeeta and her husband approached the police, and she requested them to show the articles to her again, especially the scarf. After seeing it again, she told the police she seen Nandini wearing a similar scarf a long time ago. The police wasted no time, and a team raided Nandini’s house and seized a pyjama matching the scarf’s design. Nandini was detained, taken to the police station, and confronted with the scarf and the pyjama while being subjected to sustained interrogation. She eventually broke down and admitted to having allegedly killed Shreyash.

A police officer said she narrated how she killed the child to take revenge. During interrogation, Nandini told the police that Shreyash’s grandmother Ladage would often ask her parents about her marriage. She would taunt her and even raise questions about her character. Feeling insulted, Nandini decided to kill her grandchild, who was very close to her, another officer said.

On July 15, she took Shreyash to her house when his grandmother was busy filling up water and Shweta was playing. She took Shreyash inside her room, allegedly gagged him, and strangulated him. When everyone was looking for him, she told the Nadages he had not come to her house. The next day she wrapped the boy’s body in an old scarf, took it in the bag, dumped it near the car shed in Kalyan, and gave the bag to her friend. She also told her friend a false story and convinced her to say she had given her the bag, if anyone asked about it.