Mumbai: Navaghar Police have solved a five month old murder mystery, with the help of face reconstruction and DNA sampling. Police have arrested Yogesh Rane, 33, for murdering his colleague Vijay Kumar Yadav. Apparently Yogesh had tried to murder another co-worker at the same place where he had murdered Vijay, five months ago, in a similar fashion which gave the police their first breakthrough.
On January 28, Navaghar Police found a half burnt dead body behind Kelkar College, at Mulund East. A man aged approximately 35 years old, was murdered, after being hit by a blunt object, on his forehead and on the back of his head. After killing him, the accused had burnt the face of the man beyond recognition. They began investigating, firstly by checking the missing persons complaints from police stations, across Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and nearby areas and the police screened 2000 missing complaints in a span of three months. They tried to reconstruct Vijay's face and had sent the body to KEM hospital.
Navghar police got their first breakthrough on April 29, when a man named Nauraj Reshmi, came to the police station with a head injury. He informed the police that he was hit on the head by his co-worker, named Yogesh Rane. It raised the police's eyebrows regarding this crime and felt certain dots can be joined, that were missing with the crime occurred in January. The Navghar police picked up the clues of the spot selected for the crime and the type of head injury. Police registered an offence immediately, under section of Indian Penal Code (IPC) for attempt to murder and arrested Yogesh.
Yogesh and Nauraj, both worked at Vishwa Bharati hotel, at Mulund east. When police checked in the hotel for any missing workers, they were informed, a man identified as Vijay Kumar Yadav had been missing since January 25. Police found this intriguing, as the date was close to when they had found a bludgeoned body with burnt face. Police decided to grill Yogesh further but he was a hard nut to crack as he revealed nothing. Police worked on this case for over three months. They finally traced Vijay's brother who said his brother Kishore had not contacted him since over a month. The police took DNA samples of Kishore and matched them with the body they had found on January 28. Both the DNAs matched, which convinced the police that Yogesh was responsible for murdering his co-worker Vijay and arrested him for that crime too.
During the interrogation it was revealed, Yogesh had a bad temper and he had brought dumbbells to exercise which were kept at the hotel where they stayed after working hours. Vijay too exercised with these dumbbells, but he never placed them properly, which often caused friction between the two. On the night of January 25, Yogesh called Vijay for drinks behind Kelkar collage and then smashed his head with a hammer, which was later recovered by the Navghar Police. In 2014, Yogesh was accused of murdering a woman priest, Sharada Raut and was arrested by Dighi Sagari police. However, he was acquitted after three years.
