01 April,2011 06:25 AM IST | | Salil Urunkar
City and rural police struggle to solve two murders and a missing person's case reported in the last three years. MiD DAY takes a look at the investigations of these cases and their current status
The toils of the city police -- desperately holding on to their exalted reputation of being one of the better in the state -- have yielded little results in three important investigations. Two murders and one missing case, which occurred over the last three years, have left the city police scratching their heads hard.u00a0
Investigations into the 2008 murder case of Suresh Alurkar, an avid music lover and owner of the famous Alurkar Music House on Karve road, the 2009 case of Kavita Ishwar Chikhali, a software engineer who had gone missing from the Sinhagad fort during a trekking tour, and the 2010 case of Darshana Tongare, another techie who was murdered right outside her residence in Bavdhan, are still on, but the police are still none the wiser for that.
"We haven't closed these files as far as investigation is concerned. We do keep interrogating suspects caught after any incident and ask them questions pertaining to the unsolved cases. So far we haven't received anything helpful," said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Anant Rokde.
Darshana Tongare murder, 2010
Darshana Devidas Tongare, a 21-year-old trainee engineer working with IBM, was stabbed to death right outside her residence near Suvarna Park in Bavdhan on the night of July 30, 2010. Her friend Abhijit Taru (22) had dropped her home from her office at Yerawada. Once Taru left, Darshana was stabbed in her stomach by an unknown assailant.
When she screamed for help, Niranjan Vadde, a 24-year-old man who was passing by came to her help. When Darshana pointed towards the assailant, Vadde chased him but could not catch him. Initially, the police suspected that the incident could be a fallout of unrequited love, but were also looking at chance robbery as the intention behind it. Neither angle was confirmed during the course of investigation. Darshana's phone was also reportedly misplaced after she was stabbed.
The police had conducted thorough searches at the crime spot and other nearby places, but the phone was not found nor did people come forward and share any information with the police. DCP Rokde expressed his anguish on lack of people's support to part with information. "Even after repeated appeals to citizens we haven't received any input. People should come forward and help the police if they have any piece of information."
The Alurkar Murder, 2008
Suresh Shreedhar Alurkar, who was passionate about music, possessed a huge stock of some rare Indian classical and film music collection. He was murdered on December 13, 2008 at his residence in Swapna Nagari society on Karve Road. Alurkar was stabbed brutally by the unknown assailants on his chin, neck and chest, and his hands and legs tied with electrical wires.
His neighbour Ashok Padhye discovered the body lying in a pool of blood, after he noticed that the door to the flat was left ajar. The Deccan police and the Crime Branch officials were jointly investigating the case. The aspects covered by them included property disputes, chance robbery, business rivalry, among others. Alurkar was staying away from his wife and children since many years and there was a property dispute among them too. Alurkar had once expressed his wish to sell off his famous shop and a land plot. A director of a famous music company and a sarpanch of a village -- who was involved in the land deal -- were also summoned for interrogations, but nothing concrete could be established. A senior officer from the Crime Branch, who was then a part of the investigation, said:u00a0 "We had found some fingerprints and blood stains on the handle of the safe, but those prints did not match with any of the criminals on records.
All the documents in Alurkar's flat and shop were scrutinised and nearly 5,000 calls received and dialed from his mobile were verified as the callers were called in for interrogation. Family members were also questioned about any past rivalries. The police didn't get a single lead which could help them trace the suspects." DCP Rokde stated that the case is still under investigation the Deccan police as well as Crime Branch. "We are still trying," he said.
Kavita Chikhali missing, 2009
A 28-year-old engineer Kavita Chikhali who had gone for trekking to the Sinhagad Fort along with 32 other office colleagues on November 5, 2009 went missing mysteriously. Kavita was a native of Karad and was then staying at the Nyati Empire in Chandan Nagar, Kharadi, as a paying guest at one of her friend's flat. A team of professional trekkers, police, commandos, sniffer dogs, along with Kavita's brother Chandrakant and Amit and fianc ufffde Madan Kumar searched for over 100 hours but she could not be traced.
The officers from the Haveli police station, which falls under rural police jurisdiction, investigated the case from several angles like the victim being kidnapped, having eloped, or murdered. "In cases where a girl elopes, usually they contact their parents after a few days to inform them that they are safe. But in Kavita's case, no such call was made nor did the police find her body or belongings. If she had been kidnapped for ransom, the suspects would had withdrawn money using her cards or called up the family, but again no such development occurred," a senior officer said.
