Mira Road murder: Boiling body parts, feeding it to dogs, gory details emerge

The parts of the body have been sent to the Sir JJ Hospital in Mumbai for further analysis

The stench, chopped body parts, blood stains, an electric wood-cutter, buckets and utensils full of flesh and bones, a mixer, a pressure cooker, plastic bags, bottles of oil and air-fresheners was the crime scene when cops broke open the door and entered the seventh-floor flat in a residential locality in Mira Road near Mumbai to unearth one of the bestial crimes in recent times.

The gory and spine-chilling details of the murder of Saraswati Vaidya (32) at the hands of her live-in partner Manoj Sane (56) have shocked the country.

The incident bears resemblance to the sensational Shraddha Walkar-Aftab Poonawala and Nikki Yadav-Salil Gehlot cases.

The unbearable stench and suspicious movement of the accused blew the lid off the horrific crime in the suburbs of the financial capital of Mumbai.

Saraswati’s body was recovered from Flat No. 704 in the Akashdeep Building in the Geeta Nagar area of Naya Nagar locality of Mira Road in Thane district, on Wednesday night.

The Naya Nagar police station officers and staff broke open the flat to discover the crime and immediately sensing the degree of brutality summoned forensic experts and spot panchnama was done.

The electric wood-cutting machine in the drawing room and the messed up foul-smelling kitchen told everything that had happened.

Around midnight, the accused was arrested by the Naya Nagar police station.

Read | Maharashtra State Commission for Woman seeks report on 'shocking' Mira road murder

The Mira-Bhayander Vasai-Virar Police, which is investigating the case, produced him before a local court on Thursday, which remanded him to police custody till 16 June.

“We have arrested the accused Manoj Sane and investigations are being carried out,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Jayant Bajbale, who is overseeing the investigation.

The FIR has been registered under sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence and giving false information) of the Indian Penal Code.

The couple, who were in a live-in relationship for around a decade, have been staying in the seventh-floor flat for the past three years. The couple - with a big age difference - never used to mingle with immediate neighbours and stayed away from societal functions.

While Saraswati is said to be an orphan, Manoj owned a ration outlet, however, personal details about both of them are not yet very clear at this stage.

What exactly led to the crime is not yet known - and suicide has been ruled out.

After heating words and in a fit of rage, Manoj had murdered Saraswati around three to four days ago - and had been living in the flat, chopping body parts using a tree-cutter, kitchen knives and mixer and disposing of it in bits and pieces and at different times.

“When the police entered, the kitchen was in a mess. We could see buckets of flesh and blood, a mixer which was used to mince the flesh and a pressure cooker, which seems to have been used to boil the flesh so that the stench could be reduced,” said the residents of neighbouring flats.

“Manoj killed Saraswati in their rented home. Later he tried to erase the evidence of the brutal incident. However, as soon as we entered the flat, we came to know of the horrific crime and managed to arrest the accused before he could vanish,” said Bajbale.

The investigating team suspects that Sahani may have flushed some of the body parts of his partner down the toilet drain. Besides, some of the society residents have claimed that of late, he was seen feeding dogs.

Manoj also applied some oil on the body to prevent it from decaying fast and also used air fresheners.

The body parts have been sent to the Sir JJ Hospital in Mumbai for further examination.

The samples collected from the flat have been sent for forensic analysis in Mumbai.

Initial investigations have revealed that the couple had domestic issues and the financial condition was not that sound - and this was also evident from reports that there was no refrigerator in the house.

There were reports that the accused had even claimed that Saraswati had died by suicide - and he disposed of the body. However, the police have denied this. Manoj hails from Borivli and his antecedents are being checked.