The Kalyan Government Railway Police (GRP) has solved the murder of the 45-year-old tailor whose body was found near the rail tracks near Badlapur railway station a month ago.
The four accused arrested by the police allegedly committed the crime to rob the man, but ironically, all they found in the murdered man’s wallet was `272 and a SIM card. According to deputy commissioner of police G.S. Bhandare, it was the SIM card that led the police to the culprits.
The arrested have been identified as Shyamsunder Pal alias Gabbar (25), Sandip Jatav alias Guiyya (20), Pradip Pal alias Pippa (19) and Avdesh Kumar Jatav (28), all of them from Inchapur village in Karhal taluka of the Mainpuri district in Uttar Pradesh. All the four worked in sweetmeat shops, and since they were from the same village, knew each other.
According to police inspector S.G. Nirmal, the investigating officer in the case, the four accused randomly chose Alex Fernandes, who owned a tailoring shop near Badlapur station, as their target, hoping that he would be carrying home cash from the shop. They befriended him over the course of a few days, and finally, on the evening of July 18, asked him to join them for a drink. They then took him to a secluded spot near the railway tracks, and tried to rob him.
Fernandes resisted, but was beaten up and stabbed with a knife. His body was then dumped near the railway tracks to make it appear as though he had been run over by a train.
Later, one of the accused made the mistake of using the SIM card the four had found on Fernandes, which is how the police managed to trace the culprits by retrieving the details of the call.
Pradip Pal was arrested from his work place at Bhiwandi while the other three were arrested in Badlapur from their respective sweetmeat shops on Tuesday.