Pune Crime Files: A murder that marked the end of a violent trail for an accused before he was killed for revenge

On October 12, 2022, a decomposing body was found lying off the Kadawe–Shirkoli Road in Ambegaon Budruk village in Velhe taluka. Police said the body had been mutilated, apparently to delay identification and destroy evidence, leaving investigators with few immediate leads. The Pune Rural Police’s Local Crime Branch took over the investigation. Using technical analysis, call detail records and intelligence inputs, investigators established the victim’s identity as 28-year-old Rahul Prakash Rawat, a resident of Indrayaninagar in Bhosari, and began reconstructing his final movements.

An officer who was part of the probe at the time said, “There was an old rivalry between Kadu-Deshmukh and Rawat. Kadu Deshmukh suspected Rawat of passing information to rival groups. We found out that Kadu-Deshmukh, along with accomplices Dhananjay Damale and Ganesh Nivangune, contacted Rawat and lured him from Bhosari to Dandekar Bridge in Pune on the pretext of giving him money.”

“The accused then took Rawat to a poultry farm in Velhe taluka, where he was murdered. His body was later transported and dumped near Ambegaon Budruk. A forensic examination indicated that the murder had taken place several days before the body was discovered. Despite the absence of eyewitnesses and limited physical evidence at the scene, we were able to trace the accused through technical evidence and confidential intelligence. Kadu-Deshmukh and his two alleged associates were arrested within days of the body’s recovery.”

The case became the fourth murder prosecution against Kadu-Deshmukh. Police records show that he had earlier been booked in three other murder cases between 2003 and 2007 — 2003 murder of Dinesh Vaidya, 2004 and 2007 murders registered at Haveli police station — in addition to an offence under the Arms Act. Investigators said the 2022 murder was linked to long-running rivalries between groups and suspicions that Rawat had been assisting a rival group.

In April, earlier this year, Kadu Deshmukh had been released from prison on bail in Rawat’s murder. Police also found out that Mantan Vaidya had allegedly made an unsuccessful attempt to kill Kadu-Deshmukh about a week before the fatal attack near the old Katraj tunnel on July 11. With Kadu-Deshmukh’s death, the murder trial against him in the Rawat case will now abate so far as he is concerned, although proceedings against the other accused will continue.