Missing 4-year-old girl found killed, buried near Akola

PUNE: A four-year-old girl, Tanishka Aarude, who had gone missing on June 28 while playing outside her house near Charholi, close to Alandi, was found murdered and buried at a secluded spot near Murtizapur in Akola district, about 520km from here, on Tuesday.
The police arrested two youths for the murder, who said they had committed the crime to extract a ransom of Rs 5 lakh from Tanishka’s father, Amol Aarude.The mother and two sisters of one of the youths, Shubham Jamnik (21), have been living as tenants for the past few years in a room let out by Aarude.
Senior inspector Khanderao Khaire of the Dighi police told TOI that Jamnik and his friend, Pratik Sathale (23), both from Murtizapur, abducted Tanishka while she was playing outside her house around 11am after returning from school. They smothered her to death with a pillow at a friend’s room in Dighi and stuffed the body in a sack. They took the body in a car the same day and set it on fire at a spot at Rasulpur near Murtizapur.
Khaire said the duo had decided to make the ransom call after killing Tanishka as she knew Jamnik well. “Our team led by sub-inspector Harish Mane arrested Jamnik before he could call Aarude,” he said.
Aarude runs a grocery shop in Sainagar at Vadmukhwadi. On June 28, after Tanishka had come home from school, he asked his wife to look after the shop while he went to Chinchwad to get his vehicle serviced.
“After some time, Tanishka’s mother too left the shop and went to school to pick up Tanishka’s older sister. When the mother returned, she did not see Tanishka playing outside and began searching for her. Aarude too returned and joined the search. In the evening, they came to the police station and lodged a complaint,” Khaire said.
The police, during investigations, learnt that Jamnik had come from Murtizapur to stay with his mother on June 26. He had left the place around 3pm on June 28. “When called for questioning, Jamnik initially denied knowing anything about Tanishka. However, under sustained questioning, he spilled the beans,” Khaire said.
Jamnik, who is jobless, was unable to repay a Rs 5 lakh loan that he had taken. He and Sathale hatched the plot to abduct Tanishka and repay the loan.
Jamnik and Sathale were produced before a court in Murtizapur and were being brought to Pune on a transit remand.