As a 21-year-old in 1980, man had murdered a 'bhai' who was harassing him at Lower Parel
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A killer, now aged 60, was finally arrested on Tuesday, for the murder of a Lower Parel resident in 1980. Narayan Pawar had spent one year in jail as an undertrial but disappeared after securing bail in 1981.
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Pawar, a Std IV pass from Kolhapur, had come to Mumbai as a 21-year-old to earn a living in the '80s. He finally found work with a sugarcane juice centre. "There he began to be troubled by a local bhai. The bhai regularly harassed Pawar for money and humiliated him," an officer from NM Joshi Marg police station said. Unable to take it anymore, Pawar hatched a plan to kill the bhai.
After the murder, a case was registered with the NM Joshi Police and Pawar along with his two associates were arrested. After spending a year in jail, Pawar secured bail in 1981. He disappeared thereafter. The court after issuing summons for a couple of years finally issued a proclamation against Pawar, but the cops simply could not find him.
In January 2019, while checking pending proclamations, the police top brass instructed NM Joshi cops to trace Pawar. His address only mentioned Haatkanagle district, Kolhapur.
"A team of PSI Rajani Umbarkar, constables Santosh Lokhande and Anil Rathod was formed to trace Pawar. They went to Haatkanagle and accessed the electoral list to find Pawar," the officer said.
The cops found four-five people with the same name. They posed as election commission staff and finally found Pawar, who was now working at a handloom factory. He confessed to his crime and told the cops that he thought he would never be found. After skipping bail, Pawar had got married and has two kids. His family knows nothing about his crime.
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