Mumbai: Cops can’t locate body of doctor who jumped off Atal Setu

Mintu Singh who killed MMBS student Swadichcha Sane in 2021

More than four weeks after a Dadar- based doctor died by suicide by jumping from the Navi Mumbai end of the Atal Setu, the police are still unable to trace her remains. The police have sought the assistance of local fishermen and the fire brigade but have had no luck to date. However, this is not an isolated case, with five bodies having disappeared in the marshy lands of Mumbai in last seven years.

In the recent case, Dr Kinjal Shah, 43, jumped off the Atal Setu on March 18. "We are making relentless efforts but are yet to recover her remains. Several teams have been formed by the Navi Mumbai police, the coastal police and private entities but these efforts have not yielded any results so far," said Rajendra Kote Patil, senior inspector, Nhava Sheva police.

Took a taxi from Dadar to Atal Setu

According to the police, the Bhoiwada cops had lodged a missing complaint after Shah's father approached them. "The Bhoiwada police checked CCTV footage which showed that she left the house at 1.30 pm on March 18. Around 1.45 pm, she boarded a taxi from the Shindewadi area in Dadar and went towards Atal Setu. Around 14 km away from the Navi Mumbai end on the bridge, she stopped the taxi saying she wanted to click pictures. She got down and she jumped into the sea. The taxi driver then approached the police," said Subhash Borate, senior inspector Bhoiwada police station. According to the police, the spot where Shah allegedly jumped off is an area with mangroves and hence it's causing a hindrance in recovering the body. "We have less hopes of recovering the body and it is likely that we would only find her skeletal remains," said a police officer.

Not an isolated incident

In 2021, Mintu Singh, a lifeguard by profession, killed MMBS student Swadichcha Sane and allegedly dumped her body in the Bandra Bandstand area. The Mumbai police carried out four attempts to recover her body but failed to do so. "Being a lifeguard, Singh had full knowledge of the sea and we suspect that he deliberately dumped the body at a spot where it couldn't be recovered," said a police officer. The police suspect Singh killed Sane as she refused to get intimate with him.

Dr Kinjal Shah; Tarannum Kamruddin Ansari fell into the sea in 2016 while taking selfies; Kirti Vyas was killed by her co-workers in 2018; API Ashwini Bindre was murdered in 2016 and her body was dumped into the Vasai Creek

In 2018, Kirti Vyas, 28, was allegedly killed and her body was dumped in a drain near Wadala. The incident came to light when the police arrested Vyas' co-workers Siddhesh Tamhankar and Khushi Sahjwani after a thorough investigation. The duo confessed that they dumped her body in a drain along Wadala-Mahul Road. The police tried to trace Vyas' body in Mumbai and Alibaug but failed to do so. According to the police, Vyas had warned Tamhankar to improve his performance at work or face termination, after which he and Sahjwani murdered the accountant.

Tarannum Kamruddin Ansari, 18, a Govandi resident, had fallen into the sea while taking selfies with her friends at Bandstand in Bandra in 2016. The cops launched a search operation to recover her body but failed to do so. According to the police, Mintu Singh confessed to dumping Sane's body at the same spot where Ansari had drowned.

In 2016 the Navi Mumbai cops launched an operation to recover the body of API Ashwini Bindre who was allegedly murdered by inspector Abhay Kurundhakar, his driver Kundan Bhandari and friends Rajesh Patil and Mahesh Palnikar. According to the police, her body had been dumped into the Vasai Creek. In 2018 they tried to recover the trunk containing Bindre's body parts from the creek. A team of nine divers were involved in the search but they couldn't find anything after a 3-hour-long operation. According to the police, Kurundhakar had killed Bindre, who he was allegedly having an affair with, after she demanded that he marry her.

Mar 18
Day Dr Kinjal Shah died by suicide