Woman’s...

The police have registered a case of murder against four people — the victim’s husband and her three in-laws — who are in Bihar. The police suspect Bulbul Jha was murdered as she refused to take back a complaint she had filed against her husband and that the murder is likely to have taken place in February 2019.

According to the Boisar MIDC police, room number 26 in Ganesh Nagar chawl was locked since February 2019 after its tenants — Pawan Jha,50; Bachudevi,45; their son Deepak, 25 and his wife Bulbul — apparently left for their home in Bihar and told the landlord, Lokesh Jain, 34, not to give the room on rent to anyone else. They continued to pay a monthly rent of ₹4,000 online through Pawan’s daughter, Nitu Mukesh Thakur, 30, till February this year, after which Jain tried contacting them. After getting no response, he decided to break the lock on Sunday evening and throw out the family’s belongings to make way for a new tenant, which is when he found the body inside a 200L drum kept in the loft above the house’s toilet.

“After Jain informed us, we went to the spot, recovered the body and sent it for a DNA analysis to Kalina laboratory. We have registered a case of murder against four [Pawan, Bachudevi, Deepak and Nitu] and have sent a team to Bihar to catch them,” said Pradip Kasbe, inspector, Boisar MIDC police. The police said they identified the body as Bulbul’s after preliminary investigations on the basis of the ornaments and clothes found on the body and that only Pawan, Bachudevi and Deepak were seen leaving the room in February last year.

According to Kasbe, the Jhas had been living there since 2015 before they left in February 2019. “From March 2020, Jain had stopped receiving the rent and whenever Jain called Pawan or Nitu, there was no response, so he found another tenant and on July 19, he decided to break the lock and throw out the Jhas’s belongings, which is when the body was found,” said Kasbe, adding that the neighbours said they did not get any foul smell from the room.

“In February 2019, Deepak set Bulbul on fire and she sustained burn injuries. He was arrested and later released on bail. Deepak wanted Bulbul to withdraw the complaint, which she refused to. It is possible that Deepak murdered Bulbul and fled,” said Kasbe, adding that Pawan and Deepak would work at various industrial units in Boisar.