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New Delhi: In a chilling case that appears straight out of a crime thriller, a Pune man allegedly strangled his wife to death, burned her body in a makeshift furnace, and then tried to mislead police by faking her disappearance and creating false evidence suggesting she was having an affair.
The accused, Sameer Jadhav, a garage owner and automobile diploma holder, confessed to killing his wife Anjali Jadhav (38), a private school teacher. Police said Jadhav admitted to being inspired by the Ajay Devgn-starrer Drishyam, which he had watched at least four times before executing the murder.
According to the Warje Police, Sameer suspected his wife of infidelity and often checked her phone, leading to frequent quarrels between them. To execute the murder, he rented a godown in Shindewadi for Rs 18,000 and constructed an iron furnace inside it. On October 26, he took Anjali to the warehouse on the pretext of showing her his "new workspace". While they sat on a mat eating bhel, he strangled her to death, placed her body in the furnace, poured petrol over it, and set it on fire. He later disposed of the ashes in a nearby stream and sold the iron box as scrap.
At the time of the incident, the couple's two children were away at their native village for Diwali holidays.
After the murder, Jadhav went to the police station and filed a missing complaint, claiming his wife had disappeared. He also used her phone to send "I love you" messages to one of his friends and replied to them himself, attempting to create a false trail of an extramarital affair. He kept returning to the police station, repeatedly inquiring about the progress of the investigation.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Sambhaji Kadam said the case was cracked through CCTV analysis, technical evidence, and inconsistencies in Jadhav's statements. His repeated visits and unnatural curiosity about the investigation also raised doubts and when confronted with evidence, he confessed and revealed he was inspired by the movie Drishyam.
Police recovered evidence from the rented warehouse and confirmed that the murder was premeditated. A case has been registered against the accused and an investigation is underway.
