Youth held over woman’s murder

A 23-year-old youth, who is suspected to have attacked Karishma Mane — who died last month after an unknown person assaulted her on her way to office, has been arrested by Nehru Nagar police. He has been remanded to police custody till June 16. With the arrest of Saleem Noor Sheikh of Chunabhatti, the police claims to have solved the murder case.

Both the Nehru Nagar police and crime branch officials had constituted seven separate teams to work on the case. Nehru Nagar police officials said that they saw a 16-year-old youth emerging from Anna Bhau Sathe Bridge where Ms Mane was assaulted just after the incident in the footage from CCTV cameras in the vicinity. However, they could not find him for nearly 10 days. Earlier this month, the youth was spotted during a protest staged by residents of Suman Nagar and arrested.

Nehru Nagar police station senior PI, Pramod Koparde, said, “Later, the youth was taken to the police station where we interrogated him. He revealed that on the day of the incident, he had seen another youth near the bridge and soon after crossing his path, he had seen the girl lying there in a pool of blood, after which he had started shouting for help.”

“We drew sketches of the accused as per the sixteen-year-old’s description and started searching for him. Later, we came to know one Sheikh was missing on the day of the incident and his mobile was active at the same location where the incident took place. He was hiding in Kalwa after the incident,” said Mr Koparde.

After arresting Sheikh from his residence, the police showed him to the 16-year-old who said he was the same person he had bumped into on the day of the murder. After going through Sheikh’s records, it was found that he had cases of robbery filed against him and Karishma’s purse too had gone missing after the incident.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Zone VI, Shahaji Umap, said “We have arrested suspect Mr Sheikh under benefit of doubt as he has a criminal record and the witness identified him. Sheikh was missing on May 23 and 24 and till now, the deceased’s purse too has been missing. We have arrested and produced him before court. He is in police custody till June 16 and we are going to put him through a narco analysis test.”