Probe into unsolved murder helps crack scores of kidnapping cases

On the rainy morning of August 22, 2021, the partially decomposed body of a woman surfaced in an overflowing nullah at Mankhurd's Zakir Hussain Nagar. Her legs and neck were found to have been tied up by dupattas while the body was wrapped in a plastic sheet. A murder case was registered against unknown persons, and the police began their investigation.

Exactly 15 months later, the crime branch is yet to get its hands on something concrete to establish the woman's identity, forget about catching the killer. But on the positive side, it has managed to get a couple married, reunite a mother-son duo with their family, and help solve dozens of kidnapping cases during the course of its prolonged probe.

All that the police had to go on was a silver anklet, emblazoned with the trademark 'BS', a red bangle around the woman's wrist, and a silver ring studded with a white pearl on her finger. Since the police could not make headway even after a week, the case was handed over to unit VI of crime branch.

The investigating team scanned footages from 10 CCTV cameras covering the nullah and the roads leading to the spot, and picked up 120 people for questioning. However, this exercise turned out to be futile, police inspector Ravindra Salunkhe of unit VI said.

By this time, the post-mortem report had estimated the age of the deceased between 14 and 24.

Running short of options, the crime branch officers physically visited over 500 houses in Zakir Hussain Nagar to find out if any young woman had gone missing in August or before that. But, once again, the efforts were not met with success, another officer, who was part of the team, said.

The next clue was the silver anklet. Through exhaustive inquiries, the team zeroed in on a Kolhapur-based jewellery manufacturer who used that particular trademark. The manufacturer, however, said they catered to hundreds of traders across Maharashtra and that there was no way to identify a single anklet as there were no serial numbers assigned to them. The team returned to the city empty-handed, Salunkhe said.

Desperate for a breakthrough, the police prepared a sketch of the deceased and circulated it to all the stations across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, but hit a dead end.

Meanwhile, the police were approached by the family of 24-year-old Juliet Koran D'cruz, a resident of Vanrai, who went missing on July 3, 2021. DNA samples were taken from Juliet's parents and compared with the ones taken from the woman. But three tests yielded no positive results.

Other happy endings

Meanwhile, the Mankhurd police and the crime branch started looking into the kidnapping cases involving minor girls and the adult missing reports registered 10 days before the body was found.

This line of inquiry did throw up some interesting results, and some very happy endings, though they were completely unconnected to the original case.

The mother of a 19-year-old woman from Mankhurd, who had been missing since April 10, 2020, approached the police, claiming that the deceased was her missing daughter. To convince an adamant mother, the police started digging into the case.

"The teenager used to work as a domestic help at the house of her father's friend near Karnataka high school in Mankhurd. On questioning, her father's friend told the police that she would frequently use his mobile phone to play games. When we checked his call detail record, we found that one particular number had been called very often. That number belonged to a 25-year-old man who was in a relationship with her," an officer with Mankhurd police station said.

After questioning the man's family members and friends, the police had in September last year traced the couple to Siddharth Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. The duo came back to Mumbai and got married, the officer said, adding, as they were both adults, no case was registered.

Another case that was brought to the police's attention was of a 28-year-old woman, who had been missing along with her eight-year-old son since August 7 last year. She had left home with her son after a tiff with her husband. The police suspected that someone, possibly the husband, had actually killed her and dumped her body.

Inquiries with her colleagues at the beauty parlour in Chembur where she worked before her disappearance led to the woman's new mobile number. The police traced her location to south Mumbai where she moved after staying with a friend in Mankhurd for some time following her exit from her husband's home. The couple were counselled and eventually reunited, police inspector Adinath Gavade with Mankhurd police station said.

Back to square one

Through consistent follow-ups, while pursuing the murder probe, the police helped crack 69 kidnapping cases involving minor girls and locate 668 of the 1,191 adult women reported missing across the state.

The original case, however, still remains unsolved.

In June this year, the crime branch consulted a team of forensic experts at KEM Hospital, which routinely assists the police in medico-legal cases.

"We scanned the body and performed radiological techniques for age estimation specific to the Indian population. With the scanned skull, we conducted a forensic facial reconstruction using 3D techniques," Dr Hemlata Pandey, assistant professor and forensic odontologist, KEM Hospital, said.

The procedure used for recreating the woman's face has its roots in a technique developed in the mid-20th century by Russian artist Mikhail Gerasimov, who used to collect skulls and recreate the facial features by shaping muscles, cartilage, and skin layer by layer. After creating a graphic reconstruction of the face, Gerasimov would create the sculptural reconstruction using modelling clay. Over time, it came to be known as the Anatomical Russian Method and is currently used in forensic science to identify murder victims with disfigured faces.