Days after he went missing on the job, cabbie’s body found in Lonavala forest

Lonavala ghats

An OLA cab driver from Virar, Santosh Jha, was ferrying two Kandivli residents to Khandala on June 17, when they had a fight over payment for fuel. Santosh finally paid for it and drove ahead with the passengers, but never returned home. His body was found 10 days later in the Lonavala forest. While the Lonavala police told mid-day that the Virar police had brought the accused passengers to trace the body, the latter denied detaining anyone in the matter.

Santosh Jha, whose body was found in the Lonavala ghats

Virar police recovered the body on June 27, and the car found near Kolhapur along the Maharashtra-Karnataka border on Tuesday. Lonavala police told mid-day that their Virar counterpart came with the two passengers of Santosh, who are brothers, to locate the body in the forest.

Senior Inspector Dilip Pawar of Lonavala police said, "Virar police took help from us to find the body of the deceased, which these accused had dumped in the forest area of Lonavala. The accused showed us the spot and our team fished out the body. We handed it over to the Virar police, and registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR). We transferred all related documents and the ADR report to the Virar police, as they are investigating this case."

Pawar said both the accused narrated how they threw the body in the Lonavala ghat, and then drove the car to near the border and left it. However, Virar police refused to acknowledge the entire episode and even denied detaining any accused in the matter.

Police said the body was completely decomposed. Representation pic

Senior Inspector Suresh Warede of Virar police station told mid-day, "We have neither detained anyone nor registered any murder case yet. We recovered Santosh's body from Lonavala ghat on June 27 and sent it for post-mortem. We are awaiting the report, after which we will take an appropriate action."

Santosh's 22-year-old son Rahul Jha had filed a missing person complaint with the Virar police on June 19, after he didn't return home even after two days. Virar police traced the locations of Santosh and the two passengers using the former's call data record.

An old picture of Santosh Jha

Virar police said Santosh picked up the brothers from Kandivli on June 17 for a journey to Panvel. On reaching Panvel, they asked him to take them to Khandala and offered to pay Rs 5,000. Near the Khandala Toll Naka, a fight broke out between the passengers and Santosh over refuelling the car. Finally, Santosh paid via his debit card for the fuel, and later, he went missing.