Only a few bangles to cover her, woman found dead off Mumbai highway

The body of a woman stripped off all her clothes was found off the highway in Virar on Thursday morning. There were only a few plastic bangles on her right wrist.

The police registered a murder case and have yet to identify the woman, believed to be in her mid-twenties. They are waiting for post-mortem reports to ascertain if she was raped.

The body was found 300 metres off the highway police chowkie and was spotted by locals on their way to work near Virar phata on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. The police were informed at 8.30 am.

The body was lying face down. "We were on our way to our factory when we saw a crowd near the phata. We saw a woman's naked body covered in dirt," said Vimal Jadhav, a local resident who informed the police station.

Deepak Devraj, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) said, "We have registered a case of murder against unknown persons, for now," said Devraj.

The woman had neck, face and head injuries.

"We suspect her to be a local. Preliminary probe and the nature of injuries suggest she might have been smothered to death," said Devraj.

Police suspect that the woman was thrown off a moving vehicle, which caused head injuries. An alert has been issued across police stations in the city and two neighbouring districts.

The cops are tracking missing person complaints filed in police stations over the fortnight. "We need to probe if she was killed on a vehicle and dumped on the roadside," said a senior police official.

The investigators suspect that the body was stripped of clothes to ensure crucial evidence does not fall into police hands.

"The highway has become a spot for dumping bodies of murder victims. Murderers dump the bodies in the woods between Virar and Vasai. In 2012 alone, more than 10 bodies were found in the same belt. In most cases, the probe found that they were killed elsewhere," said a police officer.

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