Solving Crime: Using clue from a spectacle, Mumbai police solve two gruesome murders
The hunt for the person who killed an elderly woman and dumped her body in Navi Mumbai’s Uran leads the police to crack another murder case – that of the murdered woman’s daughter.
6 min read
When the police team carefully inspected the entire area, they found a spectacle case – a vital clue that would help them crack not just one, but two murder cases. On July 10, a team of officials from Uran police station was dispatched to Pirkon-Sardegaon Road in Uran taluka after the Navi Mumbai police control room received information that the body of an elderly woman was found at the said location.
On reaching the spot, policemen were initially surprised and confused, wondering why, despite pumping two bullets into the woman’s head, the killer would brutally stab her with a knife on her neck.
The killer had left no ornaments or other articles on the woman’s body. To ensure police don’t get any headway in the case, the killer made sure that he did not leave any evidence around the victim that could ascertain her identity.
The body was dumped on the roadside in a dark area. When the police carefully inspected the entire area, they found a spectacle box on the spot.
The box had a Dombivali-based optician’s contact details. The police wasted no time and visited the optician, and after he was shown a photo of the deceased woman, he identified her as his customer. The optician told police that she was Bharti Ambokar (53), a Dombivali resident.
After obtaining her mobile number and address, the police visited her house and met her friend-neighbour, who told the police that while leaving home, Ambokar had told her that she was off to meet her daughter in Poynad, Alibaug. And her son-in-law, Mayuresh, was taking her to see her daughter in Alibaug.
Since phone call details of Ambokar also showed one of the last few calls was by Mayuresh, police now had their suspect.
Further investigation led the police to believe there were other people involved too. A massive manhunt was launched, and one after another, four people were caught, including main accused Mayuresh Ajeet Gambhir (45), from Palava, Dombivali, East.
During sustained interrogation, Mayuresh could not dodge the questions for long and admitted that he killed his mother-in-law.
He told the police that he was fed up with Ambokar, who was asking him to let her meet her daughter, Priti. Mayuresh would always avoid her requests, saying his wife (Priti) is pregnant and she can’t go out.
Lately, Ambokar has been regularly asking Mayuresh about her daughter and forcing him to take her to meet her.
Mayuresh finally decided to take Ambokar to see her daughter in Poynad, Alibaug. He picked her up from Dombivali on the evening of July 10 in his car along with his three friends.
En route, at a deserted place, he allegedly shot two bullets in Ambokar’s head. He wanted to ensure that she was dead. Hence he also allegedly stabbed her in the neck and later dumped the body on the roadside with the help of his friends.
“Till this stage of interrogation, everything looked in order, but the big question before us was why he was so fed up with Ambokar and why he was not letting her meet her daughter. When we asked him about this, he started looking here and there,” said senior inspector Satish Nikam of Uran police.
His expression indicated there was something more, as if he were hiding something. Suspecting something fishy, we subjected him to sustained interrogation. He told us that he was frustrated and would get angry over his mother-in-law as he didn’t want to disclose to her the fact that her daughter was no more and he only killed her, Nikam said.
Shocked by this revelation, the interrogators then started digging for more information and were told by Mayuresh that he killed his wife Priti in August 2022 by taking her to a lodge in Alibaug. He allegedly strangled her and threw her body into a gorge.
He told police that Priti was his second wife and he had given her Rs 9 lakh before being sentenced to life imprisonment in another murder case in 2014 by the Alibaug court. But as Mayuresh fought the case and was acquitted by the high court in 2022, he came out of jail and demanded his Rs 9 lakh from Priti. As per his claim, when Priti refused to return his money, he killed her.
After this disclosure, another fresh murder case was registered against Mayuresh at Alibaug with regard to the alleged murder of Priti, whose body is still not recovered. Alibaug police are probing the matter and collecting evidence. Mayuresh, who had political ambitions, is an ex-military man with multiple criminal cases on his head. He was even externed by the police. But as he is very smart, he would give the police a slip.
“At the time of killing Ambokar, he ensured that nothing was left at the crime scene that could lead police to him. But while dumping her body at a dark place by the roadside, he and his associates could not see Ambokar’s spectacle box falling at the scene. Later, this one clue helped us not just solve one but two gruesome murder cases,” Nikam said.
You May Like
