Prime time murder: Raigad: the dump yard for corpses
By Alka Dhupkar
763 unclaimed bodies recovered in 4 years
Thick forests, deserted beaches have made the region a favoured spot to get rid of bodies; locals say they’ve become accustomed to stumbling across a body or two every now and then.
The villagers’ reaction is really no different from those unfortunate Mumbaikars who live around the city’s dump yards. Just as they get habituated to the filth and the stench, in Raigad – the dumping yard for the dead – the villagers have become rather accustomed to stumbling across a body or two every now and then. If they feel like it, they report the corpse to the local police, if not they leave the task to someone else with a little more time on his hands.
Between 2012 – the year Sheena Bora’s body was dumped in Pen allegedly by her mother and former INX top boss Indrani Mukerjea and her two accomplices -- and 2015 – when the remains were recovered for forensic analysis and Raigad became prime-time news – a staggering 763 unclaimed bodies were recovered from the district’s numerous gorges, forests, and isolated sea shores. That’s one body every second day. Raigad is spread across 7,152 sq km and shares its boundaries with the Thane district to the north, Pune to the east, and Ratnagiri to the south. It is bound by the Mumbai harbour on the northwest and the Arabian Sea to the west. For its vast expanse, the district is rather sparsely populated. As per the 2011 census, Raigad’s population stood at 26,35,394. That’s a density of 368 people per sq km.
Apart from its sparse population, Raigad is a favourite with those wanting to dump a body and scoot because of its terrain. Part of the famed Western Ghats, a Unesco World Heritage site for being one of the eight hotspots of biological diversity, Raigad boasts of miles and miles of thick jungles, deep gorges, and steep wooded hills. It’s easy to lose one’s way in the wilderness. It’s also easy to dump a corpse here and believe nobody will ever find it.
A police officer in the district’s Khalapur’s taluka believes for every body found in Raigad, there are two that never are. There are gorges near impossible to access, rarely patrolled expanses of forests, and, of course, wild animals.
Karle gorge on the Alibag-Vadkhal road, Sukai gorge between Nagothane and Kolad roads, Karnala gorge, Gagode valley on the Pen-Khopoli road, Tambri gorge on the Alibaug Nagothane road, Kashedi Ghat on the Mumbai-Goa road, the Khopoli-Karjat-Mahabaleshwar road, the Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar-Ambenali Ghat, and the Mahad-Bhor Ghat are some of the preferred stretches for dumping a body and making a quick escape.
The Sheena Bora murder case, in fact, is a telling example of how ridiculously easy it is to discard a body in Raigad and not get caught. According to the cops, Sheena’s body was burnt and dumped in Pen taluka of the district on April 25, 2012. A villager stumbled upon the remains on May 24.
And Sheena’s killers were lazy – the body was left just 20 metres off the Pen-Khopoli roads. Villagers said more seasoned criminals carry the corpse several kilometres into the jungles and then hurl it into a gorge. Those then are the two bodies for every one found that the police officer was referring to. Since the Raigad police, after getting a lot of stick for bungling up the Sheena Bora case, are not talking to journalists, Mumbai Mirror compiled the figures of unidentified/unclaimed bodies by visiting government hospitals, and rural hospitals in the district. The numbers for the period 2012 to 2015 are:
Alibag Government Hospital – 30, Roha Sub-District Hospital – 27, Karjat Sub-District Hospital – 79, Shrivardhan Rural Hospital – 4, Kashele Rural Hospital – 3, Poladpur Rural Hospital – 5, Mahad Rural Hospital – 20, Murud Rural Hospital – 2, Chowk Rural Hospital – 14, Panvel Rural Hospital – 543, Uran Rural Hospital – 23, and Pen Rural Hospital – 13. While all these bodies are not murder cases certainly, a large majority of them are.
With an inquiry instituted against the Raigad police for mishandling the Sheena Bora murder case, the district police have now decided to look afresh into all cases connected to unidentified bodies.
Cops say poor post-mortem facilities at smaller centres is one of the main difficulties they face in dealing with cases involving unidentified bodies. “There is always a shortage of doctors. Forget about the stateof-the-art facilities, even good lights in post-mortem centres would be of great help,” said an officer.
The other major problem is the absence of cold-storage facilities in morgues. Only Alibaug and Karjat have cold-storage facilities. While the Karjat facility is not working properly at the moment, there is no such facility in Panvel. Mumbai Mirror is in possession of horrifying pictures of decaying bodies at the Panvel hospital. The pictures are of 2013, when bodies used to be just dumped in a room for months unattended. After much criticism then, a new facility was created, but it is yet to become functional as it is mired in controversies. However, a lot more needs to be done if Raigad’s reputation as a dumping ground for bodies is to be corrected. It would include better policing of the area and cops reacting to the discovery of a body with greater purpose and speed. Otherwise, the Sheena Bora case will only give ideas to those in need of getting rid of a corpse and the evidence of their crime.
763 unclaimed bodies recovered in 4 years
Thick forests, deserted beaches have made the region a favoured spot to get rid of bodies; locals say they’ve become accustomed to stumbling across a body or two every now and then.
In Raigad district, it is not unusual for a villager to spot a body on his way to his farm or to the market and not report it to the cops. It is too much trouble. You have to be around for the panchnama and that itself is a day’s work lost. And it does not end there, the cops will call you to the police station as and when they need you in connection with investigations.
The villagers’ reaction is really no different from those unfortunate Mumbaikars who live around the city’s dump yards. Just as they get habituated to the filth and the stench, in Raigad – the dumping yard for the dead – the villagers have become rather accustomed to stumbling across a body or two every now and then. If they feel like it, they report the corpse to the local police, if not they leave the task to someone else with a little more time on his hands.
Between 2012 – the year Sheena Bora’s body was dumped in Pen allegedly by her mother and former INX top boss Indrani Mukerjea and her two accomplices -- and 2015 – when the remains were recovered for forensic analysis and Raigad became prime-time news – a staggering 763 unclaimed bodies were recovered from the district’s numerous gorges, forests, and isolated sea shores. That’s one body every second day. Raigad is spread across 7,152 sq km and shares its boundaries with the Thane district to the north, Pune to the east, and Ratnagiri to the south. It is bound by the Mumbai harbour on the northwest and the Arabian Sea to the west. For its vast expanse, the district is rather sparsely populated. As per the 2011 census, Raigad’s population stood at 26,35,394. That’s a density of 368 people per sq km.
Apart from its sparse population, Raigad is a favourite with those wanting to dump a body and scoot because of its terrain. Part of the famed Western Ghats, a Unesco World Heritage site for being one of the eight hotspots of biological diversity, Raigad boasts of miles and miles of thick jungles, deep gorges, and steep wooded hills. It’s easy to lose one’s way in the wilderness. It’s also easy to dump a corpse here and believe nobody will ever find it.
A police officer in the district’s Khalapur’s taluka believes for every body found in Raigad, there are two that never are. There are gorges near impossible to access, rarely patrolled expanses of forests, and, of course, wild animals.
Karle gorge on the Alibag-Vadkhal road, Sukai gorge between Nagothane and Kolad roads, Karnala gorge, Gagode valley on the Pen-Khopoli road, Tambri gorge on the Alibaug Nagothane road, Kashedi Ghat on the Mumbai-Goa road, the Khopoli-Karjat-Mahabaleshwar road, the Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar-Ambenali Ghat, and the Mahad-Bhor Ghat are some of the preferred stretches for dumping a body and making a quick escape.
The Sheena Bora murder case, in fact, is a telling example of how ridiculously easy it is to discard a body in Raigad and not get caught. According to the cops, Sheena’s body was burnt and dumped in Pen taluka of the district on April 25, 2012. A villager stumbled upon the remains on May 24.
And Sheena’s killers were lazy – the body was left just 20 metres off the Pen-Khopoli roads. Villagers said more seasoned criminals carry the corpse several kilometres into the jungles and then hurl it into a gorge. Those then are the two bodies for every one found that the police officer was referring to. Since the Raigad police, after getting a lot of stick for bungling up the Sheena Bora case, are not talking to journalists, Mumbai Mirror compiled the figures of unidentified/unclaimed bodies by visiting government hospitals, and rural hospitals in the district. The numbers for the period 2012 to 2015 are:
Alibag Government Hospital – 30, Roha Sub-District Hospital – 27, Karjat Sub-District Hospital – 79, Shrivardhan Rural Hospital – 4, Kashele Rural Hospital – 3, Poladpur Rural Hospital – 5, Mahad Rural Hospital – 20, Murud Rural Hospital – 2, Chowk Rural Hospital – 14, Panvel Rural Hospital – 543, Uran Rural Hospital – 23, and Pen Rural Hospital – 13. While all these bodies are not murder cases certainly, a large majority of them are.
With an inquiry instituted against the Raigad police for mishandling the Sheena Bora murder case, the district police have now decided to look afresh into all cases connected to unidentified bodies.
Cops say poor post-mortem facilities at smaller centres is one of the main difficulties they face in dealing with cases involving unidentified bodies. “There is always a shortage of doctors. Forget about the stateof-the-art facilities, even good lights in post-mortem centres would be of great help,” said an officer.
The other major problem is the absence of cold-storage facilities in morgues. Only Alibaug and Karjat have cold-storage facilities. While the Karjat facility is not working properly at the moment, there is no such facility in Panvel. Mumbai Mirror is in possession of horrifying pictures of decaying bodies at the Panvel hospital. The pictures are of 2013, when bodies used to be just dumped in a room for months unattended. After much criticism then, a new facility was created, but it is yet to become functional as it is mired in controversies. However, a lot more needs to be done if Raigad’s reputation as a dumping ground for bodies is to be corrected. It would include better policing of the area and cops reacting to the discovery of a body with greater purpose and speed. Otherwise, the Sheena Bora case will only give ideas to those in need of getting rid of a corpse and the evidence of their crime.
