Woman police constable arrested for colleague's `murder'

A woman constable and two others have been arrested for the alleged murder of a 54-year-old policeman who died in a hit-and-run incident at Panvel in neighboring Navi Mumbai last month, an official said on Thursday.

Police naik Shivaji M Sanap died after a Nano car hit him near Panvel railway station on the night of August 15.

But after his wife suspected foul play, the police began to probe the murder angle and finally arrested constable Shital Pansare (29), Sanap's colleague at Nehru Nagar police station in Mumbai, and her two accomplices, the police official said.

Sanap lived in Pune from where he traveled to Mumbai every day via Panvel. From CCTV footage, a team of Panvel police led by senior inspector Ajaykumar Landge zeroed in on two persons who seemed to have followed him at Kurla railway station on August 15, the official said.

The probe revealed that Sanap and Pansare did not get along well, and FIRs had been registered against Sanap on her complaint about alleged sexual harassment in 2019.

Police also learned that Pansare had married one Dhanraj Jadhav in 2018 who later left her and was now living in Chennai.

Pansare had allegedly wanted to kill Sanap for the last two years and had asked her husband to help her, according to police. When he refused to help, she complained about `obscenity' against him, following which he left Mumbai, said the official.

The police approached Dhanraj Jadhav who identified one of the suspects seen in the CCTV footage at Kurla as Vishal Baban Jadhav (18), son of the watchman at the housing complex where Pansare lived. Vishal's questioning led the police to Ganesh Laxman Chavan alias Mudawath (21) who was arrested from Vikarabad in Telangana on Wednesday.

The duo allegedly told police that Pansare had hatched the conspiracy to kill Sanap and roped them in to stage a hit-and-run accident.

The accused had tried to burn the car after the crime, the official said, adding that it has been recovered by the investigators. Search is on for some more suspects in the case, he said.