Mumbai: How human intelligence cracked mystery of body in bag

Zone VI police officers including the Trombay cops have cracked the murder of a woman whose body was discovered in a sack near the Metro car shed on August 24 in Maharashtra Nagar MankhurdDespite assembling teams from various police stations to scan CCTV footage and analyse mobile phone data no clues emerged even though the culprits were just 200300 metres from where the body was found After zeroing in on the accused the deceased was identified as Reshma Jaiswal a resident of Maharashtra Nagar Mankhurd The police have arrested her husband Kanhaiya Lal Jaiswal his brother Ashok Jaiswal a relative of the deceased Ravi Srivastav and his mother and sister Munni and Reshma Srivastav The victim was allegedly having an affair with RaviThe caseAt 1040 am on Saturday a vegetable vendor told the police that he noticed the sack near his shop around 7 am but didnrsquot realise it contained a body until three hours later when a foul smell emanated from it The police then swung into action and the body was taken to Rajawadi Hospital ldquoAs part of our zerotolerance policy towards crimes against women we formed multiple teams and began piecing together evidencerdquo said Satyanarayan Chaudhary joint commissioner law and orderThe police visited nearby stations for reports of missing women aged 30 to 40 and interviewed various suspects but they didnrsquot find any clues There were no operational CCTV cameras at the crime scene while the camera at the T Junction was down due to ongoing work Despite the efforts of multiple teams working in different areas nothing substantial was discovered by Saturday eveningHowever a witness informed the police that he had passed the location at 2 am without noticing anything unusualHemraj Singh Rajput DCP Zone VI then instructed his teams to focus on human intelligence as the body must have been dumped at the spot between 2 am and 7 am ldquoWe were then confident about this so we decided to recreate the scene during that timeframerdquo an officer saidA search was then launched in Mankhurd to identify anyone present during the time frame Multiple teams were dispatched to question shopkeepers and auto and cab drivers During the search the police spoke with an autorickshaw driver who had a regular pickup near T Junction around that time The driver said he had dropped a family off at Mankhurd railway station and their clothes were dirty despite their claim that they were headed to a templeThe police then examined CCTV footage from the station to learn that three individuals including two women changed their clothes outside the station around 330 am They were later identified as Ravi Munni and Reshma Srivastav When the police located their residence in Mankhurd a relative informed the officers that they had gone to work Later the police located the trio as well as Kanhaiya and Ashok and brought them to the stationThe murderAccording to the police Kanhaiya Ashok and Ravi killed Reshma on August 21 The trio had conspired at Ravis place where the woman was called on the evening of her murder Kanhaiya and Ashok allegedly held her hands and her legs while Ravi struck her on the head with a grinding stoneAccording to the police after the murder Kanhaiya and Ashok told Ravi to dispose of the body by himself refusing to assist him further The body was kept in the house for three days and Ravi even slept next to it On August 24 Ravi sought help from the other two accused They wrapped the body in three layers placed it in a sack and left Ravi struggled to carry the body alone so he called his mother and sister for assistance Ravi carried the body on his shoulder while the women scouted the area to ensure no one was around Ravi initially intended to dump the body in a nearby creek but due to its weight he abandoned the plan