The victim's remains are yet to be traced, the police said. (Representational)
A businessman was allegedly kidnapped and killed in Palghar district of Maharashtra and his body was burnt in a forest, the police said today.
Three people were arrested and a woman was detained as suspects, police spokesperson Hemant Katkar said. The police suspect the killing to be a fallout of professional rivalry, he said.
Arif Shaikh, a resident of Thane, was a supplier of machinery spare parts and owned a factory in Palghar.
Last Thursday, when he was going to his factory in an auto-rickshaw, some unidentified people allegedly kidnapped him and strangled him to death, Mr Katkar said. The accused later took the body to a forest in Dahanu area and burnt it by pouring petrol over it, he added.
The police on Monday arrested businessman Prashant Sankhe, his cousin Samdev Sankhe and his employee Prashant Mahajan for their alleged involvement in the crime.
The Sankhes were arrested from Vapi in Gujarat while Mr Mahajan was nabbed from Jalgaon in Maharashtra, he said.
A woman working at a private firm was also detained over suspicion as Mr Shaikh had complained to her employer sometime back that she was misappropriating the company's funds, the official said.
The victim's remains are yet to be traced, the police said.
The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 302 (murder), 363 (kidnapping) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), he added.