Mumbai Bandstand murder: Woman killed for refusing sex, Sadichha Sane’s body not found

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police crime branch, which is relying on the theory of “last person seen with”, submitted a chargesheet against lifeguard Mithu Singh and others in the 2021 murder of MBBS student Sadichha Sane, at Bandstand in Bandra, attributing the motive to her refusal to have sex with him, which led to a scuffle resulting in her getting injured seriously.

The police said the duo got into a scuffle, she struggled violently as she did not want to have sex, and either he pushed her or she fell on the rocks fatally and hit her head on a sharp pointed rock. The body is yet to be found.

The police claim Singh had admitted to having killed Sane and dumped her body in the sea, and that he had showed them the location where he had dumped the body. Singh’s admission will be strongly contested by his defence team during trial

Sane a medical student, went missing on November 29, 2021, and based on her father’s complaint the police initially registered a missing complaint in Boisar and later transferred it to the Bandra police station. The crime branch took over the investigation this year and registered a case of murder.

The person who was last seen with the victim is the prime suspect, and that is part of the circumstantial evidence under criminal law. The crime branch on Tuesday submitted a 1,790-page chargesheet against Singh and his friend Jabbar Ansari for murder and destruction of evidence. The police dropped the kidnapping and wrongful confinement sections as CCTV footage showed Sane in a good mood when she was with Singh.

There are around 100 witnesses cited in the chargesheet, besides four who have given a confessional statement before a magistrate, who can be relied on for evidence. Two of Singh’s employees claimed they heard Ansari talking to Singh over the mobile four times asking if he had “sex with her” and if he should get a bedsheet. Ghanshyam, another employee of Singh, said he had heard Singh talking about Sane with bad intentions.

Two days after Sane went missing, when a body was found floating, Ansari and Singh, who were under the influence of alcohol, were overheard by a witness as saying: “Good the body found was of a male, otherwise we both would have been inside jail.”
Singh also shot pictures of the sea a day after the murder to look for a body, police said.

The police have found the body of a young woman in Trombay for which the forensic test reports and forensic identification are awaited. Singh used to shut his Chinese stall at 3am but on the day of the murder Ansari asked his cook, Karan Khatri, to do so early. Khatri said Singh and Ansari had consumed ganja and were highly intoxicated. The police have claimed that under the influence of ganja, Singh violently tried to force her to have sex and even tore off part of her clothing. In the violent scuffle, she fell and banged her head on sharp rocks.

Maybe she could have been saved, but Singh took her body far off into the water and dumped it there. It is not known if she died immediately after injuring herself or died due to drowning. It is also not known if Singh had sex with her post her injuring herself when she was unconscious. As the body has not yet been found, the chargesheet is mostly based on CCTV footage, statements of witnesses and Singh’s own confessional statements.

Three security guards of a five-star hotel said Singh and Sane went to the rocks together but he returned alone, said the police.