Navi Mumbai: Missing Man Found Murdered in Morbe Village: Investigation Underway
Navi Mumbai, 5th November 2024: A 60-year-old man from Wavanje village in Panvel taluka, who had been reported missing by his son on October 26, was discovered murdered in the bushes of Morbe village on November 2. The Panvel taluka police have opened a murder investigation against a suspect seen in CCTV footage riding as a passenger on the victim’s scooter en route to Morbe village. This suspect is currently on the run.
The victim has been identified as Yakub Khan, according to senior inspector Gajanan Ghadge from Panvel taluka police. A man named Shrikant Tiwari has been charged in connection with Khan’s death. On October 27, Khan’s son Irfan, 34, filed a missing person report stating that his father left home on his scooter around 4 PM on October 26 but failed to return.
During the investigation, police reviewed street CCTV footage, which revealed that on October 29, Yakub Khan and Tiwari were seen riding on Khan’s scooter toward Morbe village. However, only Tiwari was observed returning on the scooter about an hour later, raising suspicion against him. A subsequent search led to the discovery of Khan’s scooter, which was found abandoned in a pond in Mahodar village, approximately 7 kilometres from Morbe.
Inspector Ghadge noted that when police visited Tiwari’s home in Wavanje village, he had suspiciously left without notifying anyone, prompting authorities to treat him as the primary suspect. While conducting a search for Khan in the Morbe area, investigators found his decomposed body hidden in the bushes along a pathway near Agarwal farm in the Kumbharkhoti region on November 2.
Initially, an accidental death case was filed for Yakub Khan. However, the postmortem report from Panvel sub-district hospital indicated that the cause of death was hemorrhagic shock resulting from multiple stab wounds to his back and ligature strangulation, classifying the death as a homicide. Consequently, a murder charge was formally filed against Tiwari, and efforts to apprehend him are ongoing.
