Pune cook allegedly lured with sweets and murdered two minor sisters, hiding their bodies in a water drum
Pune cook allegedly lured with sweets and murdered two minor sisters, hiding their bodies in a water drum
Two sisters, aged 8 and 9, went missing on Wednesday afternoon while playing near their home in Rajgurunagar. Tragically, they were later discovered deceased in a partially filled water storage drum located in a first-floor room occupied by the cook of a nearby eatery.
On Thursday morning, police arrested Ajay Das, a 54-year-old cook from a lodge in Pune city, approximately 45 kilometers from Rajgurunagar. Additional Superintendent of Police Ramesh Chopade stated, “We apprehended him at the lodge before he could escape to his hometown in West Bengal.”
During initial questioning, the cook confessed to drowning the two girls in the drum before leaving the scene. He also admitted to attempting to sexually assault one of the girls, according to Chopade.
The cook has been charged with murder under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and with several offenses related to sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act. The girl’s father is a conservancy staffer, while their mother is a daily wage laborer. They were not at home when the girls were playing outside their rented ground-floor apartment in the building.
Police reported that the cook had been living alone in a rented room on the first floor, where he had resided for several years. His colleagues from the eatery had left for their hometown in Bengal five days prior. The cook was familiar to the sisters and their family. During the police investigation, he admitted to inviting the two sisters to his room under the false pretense of offering them a ‘laddoo’. Once inside, he forced the elder sister into a small washroom and locked the door. When the younger sister began to scream for help, he struck her on the head with a pipe and then drowned her in a water drum until she died. Afterward, he attempted to assault the elder sister, but when she screamed as well, he drowned her too in the same drum before covering it with a cloth and leaving the room. When their parents returned home and found the girls missing, they searched for them and contacted the Khed police. The police initially treated the case as a kidnapping and began their investigation, which included searching the neighbor’s room on the first floor.
During the investigation, the police discovered that the girls had been placed in a drum. They were quickly taken to a hospital, but the doctors declared them dead upon arrival, according to Chopade. Since the cook was not in his room at the time, the police began searching for him due to their suspicions about his involvement in the case. They received information that he was hiding in a lodge in Pune and was planning to escape the state. The police team then went to the lodge and arrested him in the early hours of Thursday. Further investigations are ongoing.
