Pune: The Bibvewadi police on Tuesday filed a suicide abetment case against a pharmacy store owner and his four employees based on a text message of another staffer (27) of the establishment found dead on the railway tracks in Khadki over two months ago. The victim had sent the message to his father, a mechanic in a spare parts firm in Loni, before ending his life. A pharmacy diploma holder, he had written in the message that the five men were harassing him over the recovery of a hand loan he had taken from them, the police said.
The case did not progress for over two months because the identity of the victim could not be established after the Govt Railway Police (GRP) recovered his body from the railway tracks on June 9. The GRP disposed off the body as unclaimed after preserving the viscera, photos of the body, clothes and a cellphone found at the site, after waiting for three days as per the norms. “GRP on Aug 14 responded to the details sent by us to all police units during a special drive to detect missing person’s cases and told us to check the photos, clothes and cellphone of a man they had found dead on the railway tracks after being hit by a train.
We summoned the victim’s parents for identification. They identified him from the photos and the clothes. They also identified his bike at the Khadki police station,” senior inspector Mangal Modhave of the Bibvewadi police said.
A DNA test using the blood sample of the victim’s father and the preserved viscera would be done, if required, to establish the identity beyond any doubt, Modhave said. The victim was reported missing after he left for work on June 1 on his bike. His family had lodged a missing person’s complaint the same night.
“The victim did not go to his workplace. While his whereabouts for the next eight days are not known yet, he sent the text message on June 9 to his father (58) mentioning the harassment by his employer and the four colleagues, and that he was ending his life,” Modhave siad. “The family reported the text message to us, but the victim could not be traced either through calls to his cellphone, which the GRP had switched off, or other details.
The GRP had recovered his bike from the spot and had handed it over to the Khadki police. Things progressed only after the victim’s identity was established,” the officer said. “It is not known yet as to what amount of money the victim had borrowed from his employer and the four colleagues earlier this year.
We are summoning them to record their statements,” she said..
