Pune shocker: Cab driver kills partner over marriage pressure, burns body; arrested

PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad police on Friday arrested a 33-year-old cab driver from Thergaon on the charge of murdering his partner from Wakad and setting her body ablaze at Dhoki in Dharashiv district on Nov 26. The suspect, Aniket Kamble, told police that the woman, who was already married, was pestering him for marriage, which led to the crime.A Wakad police team led by senior inspector Shatrughna Mali took Kamble into custody from Thergaon and handed him over to the Dhoki police in Dharashiv.Mali said the 26-year-old victim's relative registered a missing person's complaint with the police station on Nov 26 after she did not return home. "Our team led by API Ambarish Deshmukh gathered CCTV footage of the woman heading to her son's school. The clips showed her glancing back twice before entering the school, and the team also noticed a cab's movement in the footage," Mali said.API Deshmukh said a relative told police about the woman's relationship with the cab driver. The driver, Kamble, had recently travelled to Dharashiv. After being summoned, he first denied any involvement but later, during sustained questioning by API Darade, confessed to killing her.The officer said, "Cab owner Kamble and the woman had been in a relationship for a few years. Though she was married, she kept pressuring him to marry her. Kamble, also married, wanted to end the situation and planned her murder to escape the relationship."Deshmukh said on Nov 26, after dropping her son at school, the woman met Kamble, who gave her new clothes and promised to take her to his native Dharashiv village to settle there. "In the early hours of Nov 27, when they reached near Dhoki in Dharashiv district, about 275km from Pune, he throttled the woman and bludgeoned her to death inside the cab with an iron pipe," Deshmukh said.The officer said that Kamble removed petrol from his cab and set the woman's body on fire. The Dhoki police found the woman's half-burned body there on Nov 27. They have already registered a case of murder. "We handed Kamble over to them for further investigations," the officer said.