Company driver strangles accountant to death; steals Rs 15 lakh

Owner gave the accountant an assignment which required him to travel to Borivli in order to hand over an amount of Rs 15 lakh to one of their clients

Company driver strangles accountant to death; steals Rs 15 lakh

Picture of the accused

The Mumbai Police have arrested a driver for killing a South Mumbai-based accountant and stealing an amount of Rs 15 lakh from him. The deceased is identified as Raghuram Athail, 73, who worked with a South Mumbai-based shipping company known as Damini for the past 30 years.

According to the police, on May 14, 2019, the MRA Marg police received a missing complaint from the owner of a shipping company in which he said Raghuram, who is working for his company as an accountant, went missing since a day.

The owner also told the police that he had given him an assignment which required him to travel to Borivli in order to hand over an amount of Rs 15 lakh to one of their clients.

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On May 13, 2019, at around 3 pm, the victim left for Borivli in the company car along with the driver, identified as Rahul Yadav, who works with the company since the past 3 years. The next day, Yadav informed the company that he would need to visit his native place as he plans to quit his job.

His sudden resignation combined along with Raghuram's phone being switched off raised suspicion in the mind of the Shipping officials. The company owner then approached the police and filed a missing complaint of Raghuram.

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During the investigation, police found out that the driver had fled to Uttar Pradesh from Mumbai. A team was immediately dispatched to UP after which the accused was nabbed and brought back to Mumbai.

An officer said, "Yadav has confessed to killing the accountant Raghuram. Meanwhile, the police also found out that an Accidental Death Report (ADR) has been registered at the Valiv Police station in Palghar. The MRA police then coordinated with the team there and handed over the accused to them."

The Valiv police later registered an FIR against Yadav under sections 302, 379 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code.

During the investigation, Yadav revealed that once he found out that Raghuram had Rs 15 lakh in his possession and was going to deliver it to one of the consultancy firms in Borivli, he had to get hold of the money. When their car reached near Sudhir Fadke Junction, the accused noticed no crowd around. Raghuram was busy on the phone trying to get the right address from the client.

Yadav then got out of the car and sat next to Raghuram and strangled him to death with a belt before he could do anything about it. After killing him, he took the vehicle to an isolated location which falls under the Valiv police station jurisdiction, where he dumped the body, while the phone and the belt (which he used to kill him) were thrown elsewhere.

Coincidently, Raghuram had forgotten his bag at the office which contained his identity proof. Hence, when his body was found the police were unable to identify him.