The Pune police said they found the body of a 43-year-old ‘Vastushastra’ consultant, who was allegedly drugged, kidnapped and murdered by two men for his gold jewellery, in the Neera river Saturday after an extensive search operation that lasted for over two weeks.
The family members of Nilesh Dattatraya Warghade, a resident of Super Indira Nagar in Bibvewadi, reported him missing on October 16. In the initial investigation, the police found that Warghade had met his friend Deepak Jaikumar Narale, 35, a resident of Narhe, who was initially untraceable. Warghade’s family members alleged Narale might have kidnapped him for his gold ornaments weighing around 250 gm, which he was wearing when he went missing.
Based on various technical leads and ground-level probes, the police arrested Narale and his aide Ranjit Dnyabndev Jagdale, 29. The probe revealed that the duo took Warghade to a religious function in the Narhe area on the pretext of performing a ‘Vastu’ puja and gave him coffee laced with sedatives. They strangled him to death and dumped his body in the Neera river in the Sarola area Bhor taluka of Pune district, the police said.
The police recovered from the suspects stolen gold jewellery, two cell phones and the car used by them for the crime.
To find the victim’s body, the police launched an extensive search operation with the help of search and rescue experts and divers from the Pune and Satara districts, local fishermen and villagers.
