Navi Mumbai: Yellow fabric unravels grisly murder mystery

A 22yearold man Manoj Sabhajeet Bind a resident of Yadav Nagar slum in Rabale went missing in the early hours of January 21 A few days later on January 29 his decomposed body was found in a construction pit near the truck terminal not far from his locality The postmortem report and subsequent investigation revealed that Manoj was crushed to death by a massive boulder weighing over 100 kg ruling out suicide and indicating foul playDue to the state of decomposition the body was initially unidentifiable leaving police struggling for days to determine the victimrsquos identity As investigators debated whether to send the body for DNA testing or check missing person reports they stumbled upon a crucial cluemdasha small piece of yellow fabric nearthe bodyManoj Sabhajeet Bind the deceasedldquoIt looked like a cutout from a Tshirt That was all we had so we started asking locals if they had seen anyone wearing a yellow Tshirt 8ndash9 days agordquo said an official from the Crime Branch Unit 1 of Navi Mumbai policeEventually the victimrsquos mother recognised the fabric and confirmed it was her sons She had been waiting for his return after he told her he was going to the public toilet at 1215 am on January 21 but he never came back Though she had filed a missing person report with Rabale MIDC police the advanced decomposition meant the body did not match the photograph attached to the reportA screen grab of footage of the accused Deepak Bulleten Bind withdrawing money from an ATMWith no CCTV cameras in Yadav Nagar to track Manojrsquos movements and his phone wallet and debit cards missing police turned to his bank transactions They discovered that Rs 21000 had been withdrawn from his account at an ATMThe following day an official from Rabale MIDC police informed the team that Manoj had previously visited the station to report a theft claiming a ldquofriendrdquo had used his debit card to withdraw money without his consent However no FIR was registered as Manoj left the station after an argument with an unidentified personldquoWho usually has access to someonersquos ATM PIN Itrsquos either family or close friends In this case the family had no idea about Manojrsquos whereabouts let alone his PIN That left us with his two close friendsrdquo said the officialldquoOne of them even assisted us after the missing person report was filed He joined the search for Manoj likely to avoid suspicion By then we had our suspectmdashbut no evidence to prove itrdquoTo gather evidence a police team was stationed in Yadav Nagar for over five days closely monitoring the suspectrsquos movementsDuring this time police secured CCTV footage from the ATM where a man was seen withdrawing money He was wearing a cap covering his face with a handkerchief barefoot and wearing a Tshirt inside outldquoHe left nothing that could reveal his identity Even the kada bangle he always wore and the sacred thread around his wrist were removed which left us confused We questioned whether he was the suspect or if we were on the wrong trackrdquo said the officialThe second breakthrough in the case came from Manojrsquos digital recordsldquoBased on the time of death in the postmortem report we were surprised to find a message Manoj had sent to one of his friends saying lsquoMe kuchh din ke liye bahar ja reha hoon I am going out for some daysrsquo essentially telling him not to look for him We checked his previous messages and noticed differences in his texting styleldquoWe instructed one of our officers to subtly ask the suspect to type a message and compared it It matched Manoj would type lsquoraharsquo while the suspect typed lsquoreharsquo among other subtle differencesrdquo an official reportedPolice then traced the suspectrsquos mobile tower location to the same area from which Manoj had sent his last text message providing crucial evidence that led to his detentionDuring interrogation the suspect confessed to killing Manoj citing the latterrsquos intention to report the theft as the motiveldquoHe was agitated that his reputation in the locality would be permanently damaged leading to isolation This is when the entire plan to murder Manoj was hatchedrdquo said the officialThe motive was further confirmed by a statement from a friend of the accused who also resides in the same areaThe accused were identified as Deepak Bulleten Bind 20 and Deepak Gaud 24 Gaud had lent a sum of money to the victim which was not repaid providing another motive for the crime