Ashes in iron box, cops misled: How Pune man killed wife, hid body in ‘Drishyam style’

IN link with a scary criminal offense allegedly inspired by the Bollywood thriller ‘Drishyam’, constabulary in Maharashtra's Pune on sat arrested a 42-year-old man for killing his wife and attempting to destroy all traces of evidence.The accused, identified as Sammer Punjabrao Jadhav, confessed that he was “influenced by the movie” while plotting the murder, as reported earlier by HT.Jadhav, a resident of Swami Sankul Apartment near the Talathi office in Shivane, runs an automobile garage and holds a diploma in automobile engineering. His wife, Anjali Sammer Jadhav, 38, worked as a teacher in a private school.Extramarital affair and a brutal plotInvestigators said Sammer had been in an extramarital relationship with another woman. He allegedly began sending her messages from a friend’s phone to provoke arguments and frame her as unfaithful.He decided to execute his carefully hatched murder plot on October 26, according to the police. The couple had gone for a drive to Mariaai Ghat near Khed Shivapur.On their way back, Sammer took Anjali to a godown he had rented at Gogalwadi Phata in Shindewadi. There, while sharing a meal, he allegedly strangled her to death.To eliminate evidence, he placed her body in a large iron box he had prepared in advance, set it on fire using firewood stored earlier, and later dumped the ashes in a nearby riverbed. He even scraped the metal box to remove any remaining traces.Deputy Commissioner of Police Sambhaji Kadam said, “The accused had hatched a detailed plan. He had taken the godown on ₹18,000 monthly rent, made the iron box at the place and also stored firewood.”‘Drishyam-style’ cover-upLike in the film Drishyam, where a man goes to extreme lengths to conceal a murder, two days after the killing, Sammer approached the Warje-Malwadi Police Station and filed a missing person’s report for his wife.He reportedly visited the station multiple times, pretending to be a worried husband and following up on the case’s progress.Although the probe was later transferred to Rajgad Police Station, the Warje-Malwadi team continued investigating due to the case’s seriousness, cops said. It was during this phase that police began suspecting inconsistencies in his story.Senior Inspector Vishvjeet Kinegade said, “We found discrepancy in information shared by the accused after analysing CCTV footage and technical investigation. We called him and he confessed to the crime during interrogation.”(With inputs from Shrinivas Deshpande)