The unpaved road stretches on both sides on the hilly terrain, with no visible signs of habitation. There thick shrubbery on each side. This is the road that the 28-year-old youth and his friend took on the night of March 5, when he was shot dead and his girlfriend, allegedly raped by a robber. According to Sangita Gore, a resident of the nearby Nalimbi village, the road connects Ambern-ath and Kalyan Rural, and thus the upkeep of the road is never taken seriously by either of the corporation. “It’s a route used mostly by villagers for their daily commute. Otherwise, the youngsters use it as a picnic spot,” she said. The road, passing through hillocks, does provide a panoramic view of the surrounding regions, however, the liquor bottles strewn around by the roadsides bear testimony to the use of the place for “merrymaking” by many. “Now that this incident has taken place, people are not coming here. Otherwise, there are couples and groups of friends lounging in the shade and the shrubbery all the time. We pass through and don’t mind them as the road is so bad, all our concentration is there,” said Atul Shinde, an auto-rickshaw driver. The spot where police found the man’s body is 100 m away from the road. It is slightly downhill and completely hidden from the road. The wilderness spreads all across the region for a about 5 km at least, and in the distance is a hillock, towering over the clearing. “The nearest village is at least 3 kilometres from here, and the last settlement in Ambernath on the other side, at least 4 kilometres,” Shinde said. According to Samir Shaikh, a tanker driver who moves from Ambernath to Chinchpada regularly said he heard the story from a colleague who lives in Nalimbi. “Someone from the village was going on a two-wheeler when they heard the woman’s cries. She was asking for help and saying that someone was dead. The man didn’t stop and rushed to the village and told everyone. Someone from the village then called the police, who then came to the spot,” Shaikh said. The road, other than speeding vehicles, is completely empty. It is barely wide enough to let one four wheeler pass at a time, and sound of the passing vehicles can be heard before they come into view. “The stretch of the road is notorious for incidents like this. Generally, there are drunkards who misbehave with couples, but no complaints are lodged as the couples don’t want their families to know they were so far away from home. There was an incident where a woman was injured when some men were trying to molest her, a little ahead, some years ago. I don’t know if a case was lodged in that matter, but it had been known far and wide” Shaikh said. However, the road is not just a hideout for couples seeking privacy. “We have a vegetable garden nearby. We take vegetables to the market from this road and sometimes rest here. We don’t know how safe it is, but we never linger in the evening,” said Hiraman Dhule, who was sitting in a shaded spot with his wife and two daughters barely a kilometre from the incident spot and drinking packed sugarcane juice. According to Nalimbi village residents, the road has never been fully constructed. There are no street lights and no lights from settlements for as far as the eye can see. “Patel Bawdi is the last spot in Ambernath. There are newly constructed buildings there, and thus the roads are better there,” said Sandip Dighe, a resident of Nalimbi. Officers from KDMC refused to comment on the condition of the roads, stating that it was an ongoing process and the roads will come up soon. “The stretch is also used by drug addicts and none of them will ever stop unless it’s a well lit road. Under the influence of substance, youngsters do a lot of nefarious activities in the shrubbery,” said another resident, a shopkeeper on the outskirts of Nalimbi, who wished to be unnamed.
