Solving Crime: How police followed bike headlights to trace a murder accused in Navi Mumbai

A police team reached the spot but failed to locate this man. The next morning, a body was discovered on the stretch of the road. After a post-mortem examination revealed that stabbing was the cause of death, the police registered a murder case and began investigations.

The first task was to identify the deceased. Based on a chit found in his shirt pocket, the police identified the man as Sushil Kumar Vind, 25, a vegetable vendor from Mulund. Vind had gone to Ghansoli as he wanted to buy vegetables from the APMC market, the police found.

Since the stretch where his body was found was dark, the police could not find any clues. For nearly two weeks, the police scoured CCTV footage but nothing stood out. That is when the investigators went through a clip where a bike appeared to have stopped around the spot where the body was found.

The police suspected that the biker was talking to someone whom they suspected to be Vind. Since it was dark, the police could not spot the registration number. However, they kept tracking the bike headlights through CCTV footage and found that the rider met another person who was also on a bike at Kopar Khairane.

The police found this other person’s registration number and contacted him. Based on his questioning, the police found that the other rider was Sameer Shaikh (23), a drug addict who had recently been released from a rehab centre.

The police traced Shaikh and arrested him on August 21. According to the police, Shaikh tried to rob Vind to get money for drugs but they got into an argument, following which Vind was stabbed.