Solving Crime: An unexpected lead, DNA test 881, how Mumbai police cracked 2010 Nehru Nagar rape-murders after 7 years

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One of the most “stubborn” unsolved cases that both the Mumbai police and the Maharashtra criminal investigation department (CID) were faced with for more than seven years, causing much embarrassment to its rank and file, was eventually solved by the neighbouring Navi Mumbai police thanks to their investigation in another case.

Three girls, aged between five and nine, were raped and murdered in the Nehru Nagar area within five months of each other in 2010. In the first incident, which occurred on February 8, a six-year-old girl playing outside her home was reported missing. Her body was recovered in a gunny bag on the staircase of a building in Nehru Nagar.

Within a month, a nine-year-old girl went missing and her body was recovered on the terrace of the police quarters close to the Nehru Nagar police station, which was investigating the first case. On June 19, the body of a third girl, who had gone missing, was found in a room in the Nehru Nagar area. Then Maharashtra home minister R R Patil directed the police that he “wanted the pervert nabbed”.