Tenant arrested for killing elderly couple, disabled daughter in Palghar district

PALGHAR: A 30-year-old man was arrested from Uttar Pradesh on Thursday in connection with the murder of three members of a family in Palghar.
The gruesome incident came to light on August 30 when the decomposed bodies of Mukund Bechardas Rathod, 75, his wife Kanchan, 72, and their disabled daughter Sangeeta, 52, were found inside their house at Nehroli in Wada tehsil.
The investigation by the Palghar police revealed that the arrested accused, identified as Arif Anwar Ali, 30, who was a tenant of the Rathods, allegedly committed the murders on August 17 in a bid to rob the family.
Ali fled to his native place in Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh along with his family after killing the three, said the police. According to investigating officers, Rathod’s son, Pankaj, who lives in Vasai called his father on his mobile phone on August 17. However, throughout the day the phone was powered off. He suspected some foul play and requested a neighbour to check on his family.
Police officers said when the neighbour visited the house, he found the house and the rented room on the upper floor locked from the outside with no sign of anyone inside. Eventually, on August 30, Pankaj and his brother Suhas reached their house in Nehroli, located around 28 km from Wada, and broke open the door and a whiff of foul smell hit them and they found the decomposed body of his father, lying near the washroom and covered by a bedsheet. Upon searching further, they found Kanchan and Sangeeta’s bodies– kept in an iron trunk and covered by bedsheets and clothes.
The police were informed about the incident and an FIR was registered against an unknown person. The investigating officer took the help of a sniffer dog which forced them towards the room which the family had rented out to a migrant.
The police tried to locate the tenant, Arif Anwar Ali and eventually located him with the help of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force in a village in the Prayagraj district. The interrogation revealed that he had entered the house of his landlords in the afternoon under the guise of returning a hammer that he had borrowed from them, said the police.
On seeing Kanchan sleeping, he hammered Sangeeta to death and crushed her elderly mother’s head by the hammer while she was asleep, the police said, adding that soon after he heard Rathod’s scooter nearing the house and killed him as well, as soon as he entered the house.
The police said he hoped to find some gold and cash to be taken back to his native place, before leaving the place, and therefore he committed the crime with the intention of robbery. It is, however, not clear what he had robbed from the house.
The Wada police registered an FIR against the assailant under sections 103(1) (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).