A 19-year-old young woman, who had been missing for 34 days, was found murdered in the Kharghar neighbourhood of Navi Mumbai. According to the police, the preliminary investigation revealed that her former boyfriend killed her before he threw himself in front of a local train and committed suicide.
A suicide note found on the man’s cell phone contained a “code” that the investigators struggled for days to unravel. They eventually succeeded in figuring it out and discovered that it was the number of a tree that forest officials had marked. On 17th January, the code assisted the police in locating the girl’s body. According to an official, the accused, who was upset that the girl had severed her relationship with him, allegedly strangled her to death in the Kharghar Hills.
On 12th December, the girl departed for her college in Sion and never came back, which led to the Kalamboli police station opening a missing person case. The official stated that authorities also initiated another investigation after learning that a resident of Kalamboli named Vaibhav Burungale had committed suicide on 12th December by jumping in front of a local train.
A special task force was established by Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Milind Bharambe to look into the matter. The official added that police recovered a suicide note that was in the man’s cell phone, in which he confessed to killing the woman and planned to end his life.
According to the official, the suicide note contained code terms like “L01-501” which the police deciphered to solve the case. The code corresponded to the number of a Forest Department numbered tree where Vaibhav Burungale had disposed of the victim’s corpse.
A press release by the police read, “The investigation revealed that the woman and Burungale were present in the Kharghar Hills area on December 12. Police took the help of voluntary rescuers from Lonavala and collaborated with the Fire Brigade, Cidco, and Forest Department to search the woman’s body. Drones were also used.”
The uncovering of the woman’s body hidden behind bushes at a wasteland in the Kharghar region’s Owe camp area signified a significant turning point. Her clothes from when she left for college, the ID card and the wristwatch were used to identify the body. Police said that a further investigation is being carried out.
