20 March,2022 08:03 AM IST | Mumbai | Diwakar Sharma
Rehana Mondal, a neighbour, points to Nirjala Kumar’s house where she first saw her body. Pic/Hanif Patel
The highly decomposed body of a 29-year-old woman was found in her rented house in Arnala village on Wednesday. She has been identified as Nirjala Indresh Kumar. Her face and skull were brutally were damaged by assault, the police said.
Kumar's husband Indresh, who is a mason, and their two daughters were not to be seen. The body was recovered from the ground floor of the property, which is owned by Arnala village Sarpanch Hemlata Balshi, who lives upstairs. The police said they have sent Balshi a notice for not getting her tenants' details verified.
The neighbours discovered Kumar's body after a group of youths had come to collect donations for Holi. "The boys had come to collect donations on Wednesday evening and when they went, I thought of asking Kumar how much she had donated," said Rehana Mondal, a neighbour.
"It was almost 8.30 pm on Wednesday when I went to Kumar's house and the main door was half open. I saw her lying on the floor. There was some injury mark on hand and the body was bloated. The ceiling fan was on. I got scared. I immediately alerted the neighbours and one of them informed the Arnala police," she added.
An FIR under section 302 has been registered. "The prime suspect is her husband who is missing with their two daughters who are three and five years old," SI Raju Mane of Arnala police station said.
Balshi said, "Indresh Kumar and his family had moved to Virar from Talegaon almost six months ago. Asked why she did not get the tenants' verification done, Balshi said, "Indresh Kumar had come with his family, we never heard them fighting. We have never got the police verification of any of our tenants done. I had not expected something like this [to happen]."
The medical officer of the government-run hospital in Agashi, where the post mortem was done on March 17, Dr Rugved Dudhat said, "Her face and skull were badly damaged by some blunt object. It seems that the killer sat on her chest and attacked her after covering her mouth."
