A cab driver in Pune has discovered his wife’s dead body hidden inside the sofa-bed where he had been sleeping for two days while searching for her. The shocking discovery by the police at Phursungi has led to the opening of a murder investigation into the case of Swapnali Umesh Pawar, a 24-year-old woman from Hundekar Vasti near Hadapsar.
Umesh Pawar, a cab driver, rang up his wife Swapnali around 10 am from Beed, after dropping a passenger there on November 7. That was the last call the two spoke to each other. Next day, Umesh tried calling and calling her. Her phone had gone dead. When he rang up his friend in Pune after the worry began creeping in, he found that she was not there.
That afternoon, Umesh started searching for his wife on a large scale in Pune. He was visiting every nook and corner of Hadapsar, and asking friends, family, and neighbors, but nothing came to fruition. Day and night became Umesh’s routine as two more days passed without Swapnali being seen.
The Shocking Discovery
On the morning of November 10, Umesh himself made a shocking discovery who had been sleeping on that very sofa-bed where his wife’s body was eventually found. Swapnali’s body was found by Umesh when he opened the small storage compartment of the 4×6 ft sofa-cum-bed.
“Tragically, it was the very piece of furniture he was sleeping on. He’s in a state of shock,” said Senior Inspector Mangal Modhawe of the Phursungi Police. Authorities believe Swapnali was strangled to death, as the postmortem revealed strangulation as the cause of death, along with nail marks on her neck.
Suspicions Of Murder
Once the body was found, the Phursungi police launched a murder investigation immediately. There was no sign of trespassing in the couple’s apartment, and the police guessed that the suspect might have been someone familiar to Swapnali. Further investigation discovered that the phone of the suspect had been turned off after her discovery.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone V) R Raja said that Umesh was not in Pune at the time most probably murder might have taken place. Assistant Commissioner of Police (Hadapsar Division) Ashwini Rakh, who visited the crime spot, observed that the marks of throttling on Swapnali’s neck indicated she must have been strangled by the attacker.
The police have found that the accused was a frequent visitor at the couple’s flat; he would spend night time there also. A police dog could smell him, and policemen collected fingerprints at the place of incident. However, when they went to the suspect’s house at Ghondalenagar, Hadapsar, they found him absent.
Devastated by the loss, Umesh had lodged a FIR with the police alleging murder and robbery. The local policemen were checking the CCTV footages of the shops in the neighbourhood and were still looking for the suspect, who has been running from pillar to post.
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