PUNE: The city police have launched a search for a manager (38) with a private insurance company who, they claim, is the prime suspect in the murder of his wife (35) and their son (7), whose bodies were found 35km apart at Khalad near Veer dam and Jambhulwadi off the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass, respectively.
The crime occurred on Monday and came to light on Tuesday.
The Bharati Vidyapeeth police found the boy’s body at Jambhulwadi off the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass on Tuesday evening, while the Saswad police found his mother murdered on Tuesday afternoon at Khalad village.
“The man has emerged as a prime suspect on the basis of our investigation and the circumstances leading to the incident,” assistant commissioner of police Sushma Chavan told TOI on Wednesday.
“There was no fourth person in the self-driven hired SUV in which the family had left their home for an outing on Monday morning.
The couple had told their relatives that they would return the same night,” senior inspector Jagannath Kalaskar of the Bharati Vidyapeeth police said.
“CCTV footage show the husband abandoning the SUV at Market Yard off Satara road and walking towards Swargate.
He may have taken a private transport bus to leave the city,” Kalaskar said.
Seven police teams have been deployed for tracing and bringing the man back to the investigators.
A lookout circular has been issued to all airports and the man’s passport suspended to ensure he does not fly out of India.
The family’s relatives had approached the police with the couple and their son’s photographs after the three did not return home on Monday night.
The crime first came to light when the boy’s body was spotted by some people at Jambhulwadi on Tuesday evening.
The police had circulated the family’s photographs among all their units.
Based on the photographs, the Saswad police in rural Pune confirmed that the body of the woman found murdered at Khalad was that of the boy’s mother.
“Samples of blood stains collected by forensic experts from the SUV and that of the woman have matched.
The police have recovered an iron bar, which is suspected to have been used for hitting ther in the head.
The boy was stangulated to death.
Preliminary postmortem reports received by the Saswad and Bharati Vidyapeeth police stated death ‘due to hemorrhage and multiple injuries” (in the case of the woman) and ‘strangulation’ (in the case of the boy),” Kalasakar said.
Based on the GPS tracking system fitted in the hired SUV and the CCTV footage collected from various locations, the police established the route taken by the family on Monday.
“They reached Vighneshwar via Hadapsar, Saswad and Kapurhole before turning to Saswad via Bopdeo Ghat.
They reached Khalad around 8.30pm.
We suspect the man killed his wife and son along the route and dumped her body at Khalad before reaching Jambhulwadi where he dumped the boy’s body,” said Kalaskar.
“Around 1.10am on Tuesday, the man abandoned the SUV at Market Yard and walked towards Swargate,” the officer said, adding that he was from the family of a retired district planning officer at Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh.
His brother is settled in Canada.
The woman’s maternal home is in Bhopal.
The couple had moved to Pune in 2007 and later shifted to a flat at Charholi in Lohegaon.
“The woman was working with a private company but left her job two-and-ahalf years ago after the couple realised that their son was suffering from autism,” said Kalaskar.
He said the man had hired the SUV on June 11 and the family was going for outings each morning and would return the same night.
The police have found some toys and food items in the car.
“The woman’s relatives are on their way to Pune,” an officer said.
The Saswad police and the Bharati Vidyapeeth police have registered separate cases of murder and other charges relating to the woman and her son’s death and are conducting parallel investigation.