Pune Crime Files: Unidentified victim, no witnesses, but cops gathered clues from 240 CCTV cameras to nab this woman’s killers

The team’s work meant that not only were they able to arrest two suspects who had brutally murdered the woman after she had resisted her advances, but they also solved two other crimes that one of the suspects had committed in Kamshet and Nashik.

Combing through grainy footage for leads

As Unit 5 of the Crime Branch launched a parallel probe with the Bibwewadi police, they first started looking at the CCTV cameras installed in the vicinity. “To zero in on the possible movement of the suspects, we started looking at the CCTV cameras installed in the area from the time prior to the estimated time of death. As we were probing, the woman remained unidentified, which possibly blocked several leads coming our way,” said Inspector Bolkotgi, who is now in charge of Shivajinagar police station.

Much later in the investigation, the victim was identified as a resident of Gangakhed town in Maharashtra’s Parbhani district who had been living on the streets in Pune, officials said.

“We only had CCTV cameras to look at and most of it was very grainy. Our team had to search for subtle clues through the movement of suspects and sift for leads buried amid noise. But we finally zeroed in on two suspects. We traced their movement back in time by scanning CCTV footage,” he added.

In the final leg of the operation, once their ground network was activated, the police identified the suspects as Ravisingh Chitodia, a Nashik native who resided in Yewale Wadi and was 29 years old at the time, and Vijay Patil, 32, a native of Palghar. Both were unemployed.

A fall that culminated in murder

Following their arrests, the investigation revealed that Chitodia had met Patil at a country-made liquor joint in the Katraj area. After getting drunk there, Patil had suffered a fall and a head injury. They got some first aid items from a local drug store, and the two slept on the roadside where the woman’s makeshift tent was located. Early on December 9, they allegedly made advances towards the woman, which she resisted. In the scuffle that ensued, the woman scratched Chitodia before the two men attacked and killed her using a hammer that was lying nearby, the probe revealed.

Further probe revealed that the motorbike and two mobile phones recovered from Chitodia were stolen. While the bike and one of the phones were stolen from Kamshet, the second phone was snatched from a person in Nashik.

A chargesheet was subsequently filed against the two in connection with the murder. They are currently in judicial custody pending trial. Besides Inspector Bolkotgi, the investigation team comprised Assistant Inspector Krushna Babar, sub-inspectors Avinash Lahote and Chaitali Gapat, and constabulary staff.