22 April,2016 07:18 AM IST | | Samiullah Khan
Driver Harishchandra Yadav was expected to pick up a passenger from Vapi and had been missing since April 7; a milkman found the abandoned car key in Thane and called the owner
The cloud of mystery surrounding a 42-year-old man who went missing on April 6 will get clearer as the Sahar police claims to be making some progress in this case.
Deceased Harishchandra Bansidhari Yadav
The deceased, identified as Harishchandra Bansidhari Yadav, used to work as a driver for a private travel company based in Marol. He had left the city on April 6 for a pick-up in Vapi and since then, was unreachable. His body was found after four days in Bhiwandi.
The driver Harishchandra Yadav had driven a car the previous day and forgot to return the key, which was with him when he went missing. Pic for representation
"He was to reach Vapi at 5:30 pm. So he picked up the keys of the Innova at around 11:30 am and left for Vapi," said Anil Shrivastav, the owner of the travel company for which Yadav worked.
On April 7, a friend of Harishchandra called his brother Gulabchandra to say that the former's phone is unreachable and the next day, the family lodged a missing person's complaint in Vakola police station, not knowing that he has been murdered already.
Gulabchandra, who works as an auto driver, then informed Harishchandra's boss Anil Shrivastav, after which they went to Sahar police station to file the complaint. On that same day, a call came to Anil from a milkman based in Thane who informed him that he has found a car key. The keychain had Anil's number written on it. However, the key was of a Corolla.
"Harish went to Pune the previous day in the Corolla and returned on the morning of April 6. He forgot to return the key and that is how it was found at the spot," added Shrivastav. The key of the Innova was inside the jack.
Sensing trouble, Gulab and Anil went to Thane and found the Innova belonging to Anil's company at a distance of 100 meters from where the key was found.
"Instead of taking the Ahmedabad route, why he went to Thane is still a mystery. That his body was found in Bhiwandi is fishy. I am suspecting he took this route to maybe to earn something extra and some people posing as passengers looted and murdered him," said Shrivastav.
Gulab, along with his other brother Kishanchandra started preparing missing posters and began sticking those across the city. When they were about to stick a poster near a government hospital in Vasai, they got a call that asked them to reach Waliv police station to identify a body.
The duo could identify the body, which had injury marks on the forehead above the eye. Cops are suspecting he might have been killed using a rock.
"The body was found on April 7 at Bhiwandi-Kaman road under a road bridge. This is fishy, that is why we had filed a case of murder and conspiracy against an unknown person. The case was transferred to Sahar police station on April 19," said Police Inspector SC Patil posted in Waliv.
