Pune: Police nab rickshaw driver ‘who killed man & burnt his body to fake own death’

On Tuesday, the body was found near Laxmibai Hazare Hostel, in Katraj, in the jurisdiction of Bharti Vidyapeeth police station. The clothes on the body were not completely burnt. Teams from the police station started investigating into the clues that were found on the body. Some papers and Aadhar card were recovered. The note had records of some money transactions written on it with details of some persons.

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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone II) Pankaj Dahane said, “We started probing the Aadhaar card found on the body, which had the name Satish Bhalerao, on it. When we called the family members of Bhalerao, his parents said the body was not of their son. And this further complicated the case as the clothes and shoes were identified to be that of Bhalerao.”

Based on this information and technical data analysis, Bhalerao was arrested from Karnataka border. During the interrogation, he confessed the crime to the police.

Police said that Bhalerao is an alcoholic and had borrowed money from several people and the total debt was around Rs seven lakh. He told the police he wanted to get rid of the debt by staging his death.

DCP Dahane said, “He found a drunk man on Dandekar bridge, who has now been identified as Avinash Maral of Janata Vasahat, a painter. He took Maral to a secluded spot, near Katraj Bypass road, on Monday, bludgeoned him to death. He managed to partially burn his face. He has now been arrested for murder.” Police said that Bhalerao is married and has a wife and two daughters. Maral was 31 and worked as a painter.

The investigating team comprised Senior PI Balasaheb Surve, PI Shrikant Shinde, API Amol Devkar and constables Asgarali Sayyed, Sachin Dhawale, Kundan Shinde, Ganesh Chinchkar, Pranav Sankpal, Kiran Thaware, Ujjwal Mokashi, Sarfaraj Deshmukh, Kalpesh Babar, Mahesh Mandlik and Datta Dhawade.