Married woman kills lover with husband's help, stuffs body in blue drum before dumping it in Vasai; Arrested

WLid began with late-night chats and romanticist messages ended in a unrelenting bump off of a 26-year-old railroad engineer who was beaten to death, stuffed inside a blue drum and dumped in a secluded drain in Vasai, by his married lover, her husband and two accomplices after he stopped sending her money.The Mumbra police arrested the 25-year-old woman and her brother for allegedly murdering her lover with the help of her husband and another accomplice. The woman’s husband and his friend are currently absconding.The deceased, identified as Arbaz Maqsood Ali Khan, 26, was a resident of Mumbra and worked as an engineer with a prominent real estate developer in Dombivli.The storyAccording to the police, Khan had been in a relationship with Mehajabeen Khatun Ekran Sheikh, 25, a resident of Vasai, since 2021. Investigators said the affair initially appeared genuine, with frequent conversations and affectionate exchanges between the two. However, police claimed that Mehajabeen gradually began asking Khan for money, which he regularly transferred to her bank account over the years.Police said the relationship soured after Khan allegedly stopped sending Mehajabeen money every month, prompting her to allegedly plot his murder with her husband Hasan Sheikh, brother Tariq Sheikh and the latter’s friend Mojjam Pathan.Sequence of eventsAccording to police, Khan went to Dadar on April 3 to collect cash for his company but never returned home. After his father filed a missing complaint at the Mumbra police station, investigators analysed Khan’s call detail records and mobile location data, which matched Mehajabeen’s location in Vasai on the day he disappeared. Police also found that Khan had transferred ₹50,000 to Mehajabeen a day earlier.Initially denying any role, Mehajabeen later allegedly confessed during interrogation that she had called Khan to her residence in Bhoidapada, Vasai. Police said she demanded more money from Khan and, after allegedly finding nothing valuable on him, the three male accused tied his hands and legs before assaulting him with a plastic pipe, causing fatal head injuries.The accused allegedly stuffed Khan’s body into a green drum and dumped it in a drain in an isolated area under the Valiv police station limits. Police arrested Mehajabeen and Tariq on May 7, while Hasan and Pathan remain absconding.Police have registered a case under sections 140, 3(5) (kidnapping or abducting to murder or for ransom), 103(1) (outlines the punishment for murder) and 238 (deliberately destroys evidence of a crime) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against all four accused at the Mumbra police station.