Four persons have been arrested for the murder of a private vehicle driver (45) who was found dead on April 9 in Valiv area of Vasai. One more person is wanted in the case.
A Sahar police official informed this newspaper that the accused had taken a lift from the deceased when he was on his way to Vapi and later, near Nallasopara, got off to roam around the area. This irritated the driver as he was getting late for Vapi, so he told them to immediately get back into the cab, angering them to the extent that they killed him. The deceased, Harishchandra Prasad Yadav, a resident of Sahar, used to work as a cab driver.
On April 6, his owner told him to go to Vapi to get a consignment and since then, he was missing, so a missing complaint was lodged in Sahar police station.
On April 8, his body was found in Valiv and the case got transferred to Sahar for investigation. Later, the police recovered his Innova car with blood stains from Manpada area of Thane, after which they started tracking his mobile location.
A Sahar police official said that the accused were arrested on April 22. One accused is still at large and as the crime (murder) occurred in the jurisdiction of Sahar police station, the case was transferred to them.
The arrested accused — identified as Vikas Binder Yadav (20), Abhishek Shomal Yadv (20), Sunil Dhirendra Yadv (23) and Raju Chandresh Yadav (20) —hail from Azamgarh area of Uttar Pradesh and were staying in Manpada.
On the night of April 6, they were consuming alcohol at a hotel on Ghodbunder Road from where they took a lift from Yadav.
They got down at Nallasopara saying they wanted to answer nature’s call but seeing one of the group (who is now absconding) talking on the phone, Yadav asked them to get back into the cab immediately as he was getting late for Vapi.
This angered the accused who crushed Yadav’s face and chest with a heavy stone, killing him in the bargain and later dumping his body in Valiv.
A Sahar police official said while tracking Yadav’s phone, one of the accused switched on his phone and later switched it off, helping officials to get his IMEI number and track down his phone.
With the help of the mobile’s IMEI number, officials got the mobile SIM number of the accused who had inserted another SIM in the phone of the deceased.
After receiving the mobile number of the phone, they tracked the call data record of the SIM and it led them to the number of the accused, following which they arrested him and later arrested the other three. They were planning to escape to Delhi by train, said the police.
