Solving Crime: How a locket, social media, and a hunch saw Mumbai cops nail a murder accused

When they opened the suitcase, the labourers fell back in fear as a woman’s body was stuffed inside it. The police were informed. Apart from local police, Crime Branch officials also reached the spot and began a parallel probe.

A postmortem at the Rajawadi Hospital revealed that the woman was in her mid-20s and was strangled to death with some sharp strings.

The police failed to find any clues at the site, except for a locket on the woman’s neck. The locket was a cross, leading investigators to believe that the deceased was a Christian.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Lakhmi Gautam instructed several Crime Branch units to look into the case by making inquiries at the churches in their respective areas. Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajtilak Roshan supervised the teams. Officials also circulated pictures of the cross locket and the deceased woman in various WhatsApp and Telegram groups. “We visited dozens of churches, enquired with priests, and sought help in identifying the deceased and tracing her family,” said Inspector Ghanshyam Nair of Unit-5.

A few days later, Unit-11 of the Crime Branch received a call from the priest of a church in Kandivali, who informed them that he had shared photos of the deceased girl’s locket and her picture on their community’s Facebook page. The post was shared multiple times, and seeing this post, another priest from a church in Orissa thought the deceased woman could be from his area as her family used to visit the church. He informed the family and they identified the deceased woman as their family member Pratima Paval Kispatta (25).

This family then contacted the priest in Kandivali, who helped them connect to Mumbai Crime Branch officials. The family told the police that Kispatta was a housekeeper in a housing complex and stayed with her live-in partner Askar Manoj Barla (22) in Dharavi. They also told the police that the two had been fighting frequently lately and shared his photo from Instagram.

The needle of suspicion was pointing out towards Barla but with his phone switched off, the investigation met a dead end.

Meanwhile, Crime Branch Unit- 5 – Kurla falls under its jurisdiction – was simultaneously carrying out an extensive investigation. When they circulated photos of the deceased woman and the locket among their local informers, they got their first lead when a shopkeeper from the Dharavi area said he had seen the woman in the Dharavi area. Inspector Nair’s team combed the Dharavi area manually and succeeded in tracing her house.

The door was locked. Enquiring with neighbours revealed that she used to live there with Barla, who had not come home since November 19. Further enquiries revealed that Barla used to work at a samosa shop in Sion. When the police located the shop and spoke to the owner, he said that Barla, after completing the morning’s work, had left. The shop owner shared his mobile number with the police. It was the same number that the Kispatta family had shared with the Crime Branch Unit-11 officials. The number was still switched off.

The police checked the CCTV near the shop and saw Barla carrying bags as if he were going out for a long time. Following this, DCP Roshan instructed units concerned to look for the accused at all entry and exit points in Mumbai.

Unit-5 officials were tasked with checking Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT). “When we checked the CCTV camera at the terminus, we spotted Barla taking a train but it was the Godan Express that goes to Uttar Pradesh…its route does not cover Odisha. So we thought he would change trains. Crime Branch teams went to Thane and Kalyan railway stations to check if Barla was getting down there,” Assistant Police Inspector Amol Mali from Unit-5 said.

“We were right… when our colleagues checked the CCTV of Godan Express at Thane station, Barla was seen getting off the train. We found out that there was a night train to Odisha and Barla would try to take it. We checked Thane station and finally nabbed Barla from near the station,” Mali added.

Barla allegedly admitted that he was planning to escape to Odisha and took a train from LTT to Thane to stay off the police radar.

During interrogation, Barla told the police that he and Kispatta both hail from the same district of Odisha and got acquainted with each other on the train while returning to their state from Mumbai during the COVID-19 lockdown. They returned to Mumbai in July this year and started staying in Dharavi.

Barla suspected Kispatta of having an affair with a man from her village with whom she used to regularly talk over the phone. This suspicion led to fights among the couple. On November 19, they fought again. But this time, Barla lost his cool and allegedly strangulated Kispatta with fishing net strings. He then dumped her body in a suitcase and planned to leave for Odisha with the suitcase, the police said.

When Barla reached LTT, he got scared after spotting the police there, changed his mind, and took an autorickshaw to look for a place to dump the suitcase. Eventually, he left the bag at a Metro construction site in the Kurla-Chembur region in the night and fled the spot, the police added.

After being arrested, Barla claimed that he did not want to kill her and did it in a fit of rage.