Thane Police cracks double murder, arrests 35-year-old waiter for killing hotelier

Thane: Police claimed to have cracked the case of double murder at Mira Road in Maharashtra's Thane district with the arrest of a 35-year-old waiter from Pune.

The accused, Kallu Yadav, was arrested on Friday for the crime he had allegedly committed on May 30, a police official said.

According to police, the murder was a fallout of a dispute between the accused and the victims over food.

The bodies of the victims, Harish Shetty (42) and Naresh Pandit (53) had been recovered from the water tank of Sabari restaurant-cum-bar at Mira Road in the wee hours of Friday, the official said.

While Shetty worked as a manager at the restaurant, Pandit was a cleaner. The accused worked as a waiter in that eatery, he added.

"Several injury marks were found on the bodies of the victims. During the probe the police came to know that Yadav has started working as at a restaurant in Pune after committing the crime," the official said.

A team of police rushed to Pune and nabbed Yadav from Parvati area on Friday.

"During his interrogation, Yadav admitted that he had murdered the duo. He said the manager used to get delicious food for himself, but offer bland meal to him. He said he was annoyed over it and decided to eliminate Shetty and Pandit," the official said.

"Accordingly, he attacked them with a spade while they were asleep. He then dragged their bodies and dumped them into a water tank at the restaurant," inspector Venkat Andhale of the crime branch of Thane rural police said.

He said that as per the preliminary investigation, the accused was also involved in a case murder at Kolkata in 2013 and had been behind bars in that connection in the past