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The Mumbai police have cracked a two-month old murder case in suburban Thane with the arrest of Vinayak Parab, 24, who allegedly killed 75-year-old Saraswati Bawdekar.
On May 22, Bawdekar was killed in her daughter's house at Vrudavan in Thane, while her family members were out shopping. She had been stabbed multiple times and her gold chain was missing. Though the police initially suspected that it was a robbery, they soon ruled that out as none of the other items in the house was missing.
There was no sign of forced entry as Bawdekar had let in the person herself, indicating that the murderer was an acquaintance. The police began to check the mobile phone records of all the family members. They also checked the alibis of all the acquaintances of the family.
Parab's number figured frequently among the calls made by Bawdekar's 22-year-old granddaughter (name withheld on request). The police soon found out that Parab and the girl had been involved in a relationship but the latter had recently ended it.
Parab initially claimed that he was in Mumbai on the day of the murder, but his mobile records proved that he was actually in Vrudavan that day.
"When questioned by the police, Parab confessed to his crime," said Police Sub-inspector Satish Ghotekar of the crime detection branch at Rabodi.
He told the police that he had suspected that his girlfriend had dumped him for someone else and he had gone to her house to confront her. The girl's grandmother answered the door and rebuked him for making inquiries about her. He stabbed her in a fit of rage with a knife had brought for his girlfriend. Parab took the old lady's chain as he wanted it to look like a case of theft.