Pune Crime Files: How police cracked an elderly man’s murder — CCTV footage, minors moving suspiciously

Two teams of Pune rural police from the Ottur police station and another from the local Crime Branch led by Senior Inspector Avinash Shilimkar launched their probe into the murder case. While medical reports confirmed Nawab Shaikh was murdered by assault and strangulation, the police were yet to find information that could help them zero in on the perpetrators.

‘No previous enmity’

As they widened their probe, the police analysed a CCTV camera installed a few metres away from the crime scene. Officers said this systematic investigation by the Pune rural police led to the arrest of seven youngsters, including four minor boys, who allegedly murdered the senior citizen to loot his valuables.

“The deceased man was old and had no previous enmity with anyone. His family members resided in Pune city. Also, there was no CCTV camera installed near his residence. A couple of CCTV cameras were installed on two routes going towards the house of the deceased. To get clues, we checked the footage captured by the CCTV cameras installed by Gram Panchayat at spots that were over 500 metres from the crime scene,” said Lahu Thate, Assistant Police Inspector, Ottur police station.

“We found some young boys moving suspiciously, and the way they were handling cell phones was also very suspicious. The cell phone of the deceased man was also missing. So, we started zeroing these young boys. We rounded up the boys seen in the CCTV videos for investigation. All of them lived in Ottur. The probe confirmed their involvement in the murder. We arrested three youngsters of age above 18 years. Four minor boys of age between 14 and 18 years old were apprehended and sent to an observation home. Initially, we had no clues, but we solved the case within 48 hours,” said Thate.

Vilas Wagh, 20, Prakash Wagh, 19, and Bhima Hilam, 25, and the four other accused were known to each other, said the police.

“They had no previous criminal record. They just conspired to get some money by looting the old man who lived alone. However, when they tried to loot the old man at night, he resisted. So, they attacked him so hard that he died on the spot. The boys looted two cell phones from him and escaped from the spot. They were seen handing the cell phones with curiosity in the CCTV footage. This raised doubts due to which we nabbed them and the murder case was solved,” Thate said.