A 25-year-old man was arrested on Saturday for allegedly pushing his girlfriend into a 500-foot-deep gorge near Naikwadi waterfall in Kolhapur district’s Bhudargad taluka after her family arranged her marriage to another man, police said on Sunday.
The victim, a final-year Civil Engineering student, had been in a relationship with the accused, Shripad Dinkar Vadar, 25, a resident of Shivajinagar in Gargoti, for about five years. Her family had fixed her marriage about four months ago, with the wedding scheduled for next month. She had since started avoiding Vadar, police said.
According to police, Vadar took the woman to the Naikwadi waterfall area near Patgaon on October 9, ostensibly to spend time together. He allegedly pushed her into the gorge after becoming angry over her decision to distance herself from him following the marriage arrangement.
Bhudargad police station inspector Sandeep Jagtap said, “The accused initially attempted to mislead investigators by claiming that the woman had gone missing while he was fetching a bottle of water from his motorcycle. He subsequently searched for her and approached the police station along with his friends and relatives to report her disappearance.”
Police personnel, accompanied by Vadar and local residents, visited the area to verify his account. They found a black bag containing the woman’s documents but could not locate her.
During further questioning, Vadar allegedly claimed that the woman had fallen into the gorge while talking on her phone. He also showed the police the spot where she had supposedly fallen, Jagtap said. As it was night and the area was surrounded by forest, police returned to the station, as searching the deep gorge required the assistance of a rescue team.
During subsequent interrogation, Vadar confessed to pushing the woman into the gorge because he was angry that her marriage had been arranged with another man and that she had been avoiding him, police said.
On October 10, a team from the Sahyadri Rescue Team, Amboli, assisted police in recovering the woman’s body from the gorge at the spot identified by Vadar. Her younger brother and other relatives identified the body. It was then sent to Chhatrapati Pramila Raje (CPR) Hospital in Kolhapur for a post-mortem examination.
Police added Section 103(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), pertaining to murder, to the case and arrested Vadar.
