20 October,2020 01:45 PM IST | Mumbai | Samiullah Khan
Ashish Ukani and Nikita Doshi
A 35-year-old man, who was arrested for Rs 15.65 lakh fraud by the Kashimira police, confessed of murdering his live-in partner, who was also involved in the fraud case.
The accused has been identified as Ashish Ukani and the victim has been identified as 35-year-old Nikita Doshi. Ashish and Nikita met through Facebook in 2016 and they both were married at that time. They fell in love and started living together in Mira Road. Nikita divorced her husband, while Ashish separated from his wife but did not divorce her. Ashish's wife and children lived in Surat.
According to the police sources, apart from Ashish and Nikita, another accused Shobhit Kumar was booked in the fraud case filed by Kashimira police on December 15, 2019.
Posing as directors of Maitrin company, Ashish and Nikita had bought four card swipe machines from Tranmart Digital private limited and withdrew Rs 15.65 lakh through invoice base system using Shobhit's credit card, which had a withdrawal limit of just Rs 29,000.
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After a complaint by the Transmart company's manager, Kashimira police registered a case against the trio and started the investigation.
According to reports, after committing the fraud, the duo fled to their native village in Gujarat's Amreli district. However, the two had a fight over money distribution, following which Ashish pushed Nikita into a well. He later pulled out her body and buried it in his cotton farm field on October 15.
DCP Vijakant Sagar from Mira road zone one said that after pulling out the body from the well, Ashish dug a three and a half feet pit and buried the body after putting salt on it.
"Ashish planted cucumber on Nikita's grave and used to visit daily to check if everything was fine. After staying in the village for several days, he went to Surat and started living with his wife and children. Ashish had Nikita's mobile phone and he did not switch it off. Ashish used to reply to all the messages on Nikita's WhatsApp. However, many times Nikita's relatives messaged but Ashish did not respond to anything more than hi and hello," said DCP Vijakant Sagar.
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Nikita's sister and brother-in-law, who lived in Borivli, got suspicious and sent a message on Nikita's number, asking about the name of some relatives to which Ashish didn't reply. "Nikita's brother-in-law approached Kashimira police station and filed a missing complaint on February 29," said senior inspector Sanjay Hazare.
"We got the information about Ashish hiding in Surat. Using the Call Data Record and other technical analysis, we arrested him last week. During the interrogation, he refused to reveal anything. However, later he confessed to committing the fraud and murdering Nikita," added Hazare.
Under the supervision of CP Sadanand Date and DCP Vijaykant Sagar, a special team was sent to Amreli and Nikita's body was dug out in the presence of local police and magistrate. The body was sent for autopsy.
API Rajendra Chandankar filed a case at the local police station and on further investigation, it was found out that Ashish had committed similar frauds in Surat as well and duped people of over Rs 2 crore. Cases have been registered against Ashish in Gujarat as well.
Meanwhile, Shobhit is still at large, Chandankar said.
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