1 day Ago By Mihir Tanksale
Pune: The Pune Rural police on Sunday arrested a grocery shop owner from Khed taluka on the charge of bludgeoning a 17-year-old college student to death. She was missing since the morning of April 11. Her body was found near some farmland along the Bhima River's banks on Saturday.
"The reason for the murder is yet to be ascertained. We are interrogating the grocery shop owner who was remanded in police custody for nine days by the court after his arrest," deputy superintendent of Pune Rural police Amol Mandve said. Mandve added that the victim was a student in a private college in Rajgurunagar.
On Friday morning, she left her house for college. When she did not return by afternoon, her parents approached the Khed police and lodged a missing person's complaint. "The body was found with injuries on the head and face," Mandve said, adding that when the police checked CCTV footage in the area, they found her riding pillion on a motorcycle.
"The motorcycle rider was later identified as the grocery shop owner. The farmland where the student's body was found is owned by the his family. Some villagers told us that the grocer on Friday had told them that he heard screams near his farmland," the officer said.
Mandve said the police then took the grocer into custody. During sustained questioning, he admitted to killing the student. "On Friday morning, the grocer spotted her waiting for a bus near her village and offered her a lift and then murdered her," Mandve said.
He said they are waiting for the postmortem report to ascertain if there was any sexual assault before she was bludgeoned to death. "Our investigations are on," Mandve said..
