Mumbai Crime: Wife, 6 others held for murder of Kurla goon

Investigations into the disappearance of a Kurla West resident led cops to discover a real life lsquoDrishyamrsquo plot Tired of the nuisance created by the man seven people including his wife and neighbours killed him and buried the body in his own home two months agoThey were caught after the police found their statements identical including minute detailsThe police said the 28yearold victim Deepak Sangle alias Kotya faced a string of cases and often filed false complaints against others His wife and others decided to get rid of him after he talked of using the 9yearold daughter of his sisterinlaw to accuse some people of rape and extort money from themThe police said forensic experts are yet to exhume the body Representation picIt all started with a missing complaint by Kotyarsquos sister Sangeeta Sangle at Vinoba Bhave VB Nagar police station on June 21 She said her brother who lived at Jai Bhavani chawl Bail Bazar had remained untraceable for a week and that she suspected involvement of his wife and neighboursAlso Read Week on missing Thane jewellerrsquos body foundAfter DCP zone 5 Pranay Ashok asked his officers to get to the bottom of the matter Senior Inspector Rajesh Pawar formed a special team to trace Kotya ldquoKotya was a notorious criminal There were theft robbery and molestation cases registered against him We had also initiated a process to extern himrdquo an officer from VB Nagar police Meanwhile a parallel investigation was being carried out by Unit 5 of the crime branchThe crime branch first questioned Kotyarsquos brotherinlaw Aditya Gautam 19 but he said he had no clue about his sudden disappearance As they spoke to Kotyarsquos relatives and neighbours all feigned ignorance The cops were alerted to the striking similarities in their statements that included minute details like place and time They suspected the statements were a part of a wellcrafted scriptThe breakthrough came when Kotyarsquos sisterinlaw Manisha 25 was grilled again two days ago She told the crime branch that they killed Kotya on June 14 as he was thinking of using her daughter to file a false rape complaint against some people and blackmail them for moneyWith the initial lead VB Nagar cops renewed their focus on Kotyarsquos wife his brotherinlaw and sisterinlaw Kotyarsquos wife Saraswati 21 then told the police that her elder brother Anand Gautam 22 neighbours Vishal Karade 25 Kishor Sahu 27 and Ritik Vishwakarma 22 were also involved in the murder They were all arrested on Thursday ldquoKotya was troubling many people and had a lot of enemies His family was tired of his behaviour but when he started speaking of dragging the 9yearold child into his dirty game they decided enough was enoughrdquo said SI Pawar ldquoHis wife gave him sleeping pills and when he went unconscious he was killed with sharp weapons They then buried the body in his own houserdquo he addedKotyarsquos body is yet to be retrieved by forensic experts All seven suspects have been remanded in police custody till August 30