Body-in-sofa case: Manhunt in Beed for security guard who worked with victim

Pune: Police officials on Sunday told TOI they now have a suspect in the grisly Hadapsar murder case , in which a 24-year-old woman's body was found stuffed inside the storage box of a sofa-cum-bed, in her house in Hundekar Vasti on Saturday. Search teams from Pune were dispatched to Beed on Saturday night itself, to look for a security guard the woman is believed to have worked with some time ago, officials said. "Our suspect and the victim, Swapnali Pawar , both worked as security guards at an establishment in Kondhwa.

We'll know more once an arrest is made," said senior inspector Mangal Modhave, of Phursungi police. Modhave said police began looking for the guard after the victim's neighbours said he was a frequent guest. "Swapnali used to introduce him to others as her husband's uncle," Modhave said, adding that the guard's phone was switched off for a while before it turned back on for a few minutes, giving them a break in the case.



"We got a clue about his location as soon as the phone came back on. Earlier, when we had visited his residence in Gondhalenagar, he was not there. We now know he's somewhere in Gevrai, in Beed district," Modhave said.

Swapnali Pawar's body was found by her husband Umesh, a cab driver, who spent two days looking for her, after their last phone call on Nov 7. On Nov 9 morning, realising that her jewellery was missing too, Umesh opened up the storage compartment in the sofa, only to find his wife's body inside. Tragically, it was the very sofa he had been sleeping on.

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