Body of govt engg college’s ex-HoD exhumed 40 days after missing complaint; 3 held

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The body of Rajabhau Subharao Londhe (60), a former head of the department (HoD) with the govt engineering college in the city reported missing since Feb 5, was traced and exhumed on Sunday afternoon from a pit in a forested area of Gevrai Tanda in rural Sambhajinagar.A bullet injury was found on the victim's head, suggesting he was shot dead before being buried, police said. The body was sent to the Government Medical College and Hospital for an autopsy, which was underway till late Sunday night.Londhe was a resident of Abhirika Apartment in Jyotinagar, Osmanpura. The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar city crime branch arrested three suspects — Vishal Vikas Rathod (24), Aakash Vinod Pawar (32) and Karan Vilas Ade (22), all residents of Gevrai Tanda. The police are in the process of impounding a car and a firearm allegedly used in the crime.Police commissioner Pravin Pawar told TOI, "Our investigation so far has revealed that the murder was a pre-planned crime. The key suspect had engaged a JCB operator to dig two pits nearly 200m apart at Gevrai Tanda, claiming they were searching for hidden treasure. These pits were dug almost three days before the murder."Prima facie investigation revealed that Rathod would frequently meet and party with Londhe after convincing him to invest money in a reality show the three claimed to be producing. The victim had invested around Rs40–50 lakh and had been pressuring them to release the show soon, the police said.Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Ratnakar Navale said the suspects hatched a conspiracy to eliminate the victim after he began demanding his money back. On the night of Feb 5, Rathod, along with his brother-in-law Aakash Pawar, allegedly took Londhe to a farmhouse in Daulatabad for a party where they consumed liquor."They left the farmhouse in the early hours of Feb 6 and stopped their car near a railway bridge in the Sajapur area. The victim was asked to step out of the vehicle, following which the main accused allegedly shot him in the head with a pistol," Navale said.The accused then drove around the city and briefly stopped near Cigma Hospital around 5am to create an impression that Londhe had been dropped there. They later took the body to Gevrai Tanda, where it was buried in one of the pre-dug pits.Police inspector (crime) Gajanan Kalyankar said the investigation gathered pace after relatives met the police commissioner on March 12 and expressed suspicion over the circumstances of Londhe's disappearance. "Technical analysis and CCTV footage from more than 100 cameras contradicted the accused's claim that they had dropped the victim near the hospital. The accused even tried to mislead the investigation by first carrying the victim's cellphone to Pune and keeping a status in incorrect English that he should not be disturbed. We found that the victim had good command over the language and such grammatical errors could not have been from him," he said.Based on the disclosure made during the interrogation, the police conducted a panchnama and exhumed the body on Sunday.