This story is from October 20, 2020

Body found in Pune's Tamhini ghat may be of missing lawyer: Cops

Three persons, including an advocate, were arrested on the suspicion of abducting and murdering city lawyer Umesh Chandrashekhar More (32) and disposing of his body in the Tamhini ghat forest area in Mulshi taluka.
Body found in Pune's Tamhini ghat may be of missing lawyer: Cops
Representative image
PUNE: Three persons, including an advocate, were arrested on the suspicion of abducting and murdering city lawyer Umesh Chandrashekhar More (32) and disposing of his body in the Tamhini ghat forest area in Mulshi taluka.
Senior inspector Balasaheb Kopnar, inspector Manisha Zende and their team from the Shivajinagar police on Monday recovered a burnt body from the Tamhini ghat.
“The body is being sent for DNA test to ascertain the identity. We have arrested three persons on suspicion after our investigations revealed their links with the crime. Prima facie, land dispute is the motive,” Pune commissioner of police (CP) Amitabh Gupta told reporters.
More practised in civil court. He was reported missing since October 1 and was last seen at Shivajinagar court.
More’s family members lodged a missing complaint on October 2. His brother, Prashant, later told police that he might have been abducted. A case of abduction and common intention was registered on October 5.
On Monday afternoon, additional chief judicial magistrate S H Salunkhe ordered custodial remand of the arrested trio — Kapil Vilas Falke (34) of Chikhali, Deepak Shivaji Wandekar (28) of Beed and advocate Rohit Dattatreya Shende (32) of Market Yard — till October 22. The police stated that the trio’s custodial interrogation was needed to recover the four-wheeler used in the crime, establish the mastermind and probe involvement of others, if any.
Falke, a landowner, has a dacoity case to his name at the
Ranjangaon police. Shende was named one of the accused in a 2018 bribery case registered with the Bund Garden police. More was the complainant. Wandekar is a property agent. “Apart from the land dispute, the victim and one of the suspects (Shende) had extreme differences over various matters,” the CP said.
A CCTV footage of October 1 showed More leaving the court on his bike before being stopped by a person. Later, the person led him to the rear seat of a car, and they left. “The breakthrough came with Falke’s detention and his subsequent admission of having committed the crime with Wandekar and Shende,” an officer said.
“The suspects convinced More to accompany them for settling the dispute, but things did not work out. The trio then used a rope in the car to strangulate him, took away his cellphone and went to the Tamhini ghat via Pirangut. There, they burnt the body and disposed it of,” the officer said.
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