On the trail of Sandhya Singh's killer, cops crack 8 other cases

Investigations into Sandhya Singh's sensational murder case have inadvertently solved eight other cases. Yesterday, the police solved the murder of a woman from Kalwa in Thane, and arrested her husband from Panvel.

Sandhya Singh, sister of famed music director duo Jatin and Lalit, went missing with jewellery worth Rs 20 lakh on December 13, 2012. Her skeletal remains were later found near the Vashi creek in January this year. u00a0"We got a tip-off about a person lurking in the Panvel and Nerul area after committing a murder," said Nitin Patil, assistant police inspector of the property cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch.u00a0

"Based on the information, the Crime Branch team picked up Ajay Atmaram Jadhav, and during interrogations, Jadhav confessed to murder. Only, the victim wasn't Singh but of his own wife Yasmin, alias Guddi," said Patil. Jadhav killed his wife as she was planning to leave him. Jadhav was incarcerated in Taloja Jail for the murder of one Jairam Gupta in April 2010. When he returned home on parole, he learnt that his wife wanted to leave. Angry, he strangled her with a dupatta in Khoregoan, Kalwa, and then fled.u00a0

The Kalwa police have been on the lookout for him ever since. Jadhav will now be handed over to the Kalwa police. On March 14, the Crime Branch arrested history-sheeter Mohammad Arif Mehndi Hasan, after his mobile phone location showed up Nerul on the day Singh went missing. During interrogations, Hasan confessed to having stolen four autos from Vashi and Chembur. He was arrested and handed over to officials of police stations in the areas where the thefts were executed.

The police have also picked up Mukesh Panikar, a shopkeeper from Nerul, who went missing on December 14, a day after Singh's disappearance. "We found that Panikar had a chain-snatching case registered against him at Colaba police station, and two cheating cases lodged at Azad Maidan and Pydhonie police stations. He used to promise people jobs in Namibia, take money from there and then escpae," said Nandkumar Gopale, senior police inspector of the Property cell.u00a0