The victim had helped the police arrest his friend who had eloped with a minor, which prompted the latter to exact revenge and murder the 20-year-old
Following the arrest of a person, Crime Branch officers claim to have solved the mystery behind the missing 20-year-old Dombivli resident who went missing 81 days ago. Acting on a tip-off, police arrested Deepesh alias Chetan Eknath Patil (20) on Saturday, who during interrogations spilled the beans on the disappearance of Rohit Ramesh Mhatre (20), a resident of Subhash Road, Dombivli.
Rohit Mhatre
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Police said the arrested accused revealed that Mhatre was killed and dumped in the creek, following a tiff over a girl. Police are yet to recover the body and are on the look out for another accused in the case, identified as Suresh Menon, a resident from the same area. According to Crime Branch officers, Rohit went missing on February 8. His father had lodged a missing persons complaint with Vishnu Nagar police about the same. With the police investigations reaching a dead end, the breakthrough came after they received specific information on the case.
According to the police, Crime Branch officers learnt that Menon, a friend of Rohit, was behind the murder and they began to trace him. But with no trace of the Menon, the police managed to arrest Suresh’s friend Deepesh, also a resident of the same area.
“During interrogations, we learnt that Menon and Mhatre were both HSC dropouts and they both liked the same girl. Menon, however, fled with the minor girl to Tamil Nadu six months ago, and used to call Mhatre from there. Since Mhatre was jealous that the girl he liked had run off with Menon, he tipped the police who then arrested Menon,” said Nishikant Patil, senior Crime Branch officer of Unit II.
Menon, who was booked for kidnapping, later jumped bail, and in the month of February he linked up with Mhatre. Menon never made it known to Mhatre that he knew that his friend had tipped off the police.“Menon, along with Patil, cooked up a plan to bump off Mhatre and took him out for a drink near Thakurli railway station. After consuming two beers, they attacked Mhatre with an iron rod, killing him and later dumped his body in the creek,” said Gulabrao More, Crime Branch police inspector.
Police are yet to recover Mhatre’s body from the creek, and have launched a manhunt to trace Menon, who is absconding. Constables Nitin Palande and Sachin Shelar had learnt that the killer behind Mhatre’s murder were his two friends and had managed to nab Patil.
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