Bodies of seven members of a family, including three children, were fished out from Bhima River at the Paragon village in Maharashtra’s Pune district over the last week, said the police.
The police have identified the deceased as Mohan Uttam Pawar, 45; his wife Sangita Pawar, 40; both natives of Khamgaon village in Georai taluka of Beed district, their daughter Rani Fulaware, 24; son-in-law Shamrao Pandit Fulaware, 28; and the couple’s three children — Ritesh Fulaware, 7; Chotu 5; and Krushna 3. The Fulawares hailed from Hatole village in Washi taluka of Osmanabad district.
The police said the first body was found on January 18. Three more bodies were found between January 20 and January 22. The bodies of the three children were fished out from the river by a team of Pune Mahanagar Vikas Pradhikaran Tuesday.
The bodies were sent for post-mortem soon after they were recovered. “Post-mortem report of the four adults was received. As per the post-mortem report, the cause of their deaths was drowning. No injuries were found on the four bodies,” stated a police press release issued Tuesday. The post-mortem of the three children was being done, said the police.
The police said a cell phone recovered from a deceased woman helped them in tracing their relatives who identified the bodies.
A probe revealed that the deceased were residing at the Nighoj village in Parner in Ahmednagar district for the last one year and they were labourers, said the police.
Ankit Goyal, superintendent of the Pune rural police, visited the place where bodies were recovered. The incident was registered at the Yavat police station of Pune rural police. Police inspector Hemant Shendge said, “As per the legal procedure, an accidental death has been lodged and a probe is on to confirm the cause behind the deaths. No suicide note has been recovered.”
The police said the probe revealed that Mohan Pawar was upset due to some incident in his family. But whether he and his family members died by suicide or was there any other reason behind the deaths was still not known. The press release stated that police teams were formed and dispatched to different locations for probing different possibilities.
