More than a year after a woman's body was recovered from a creek in Thane district of Maharashtra, police have found that she was pushed to death from a bridge by her lover for resisting his sexual advances, officials said on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old victim was identified as Mansi Bhoir, whose sudden disappearance in November last year remained unsolved for months. But the case was finally cracked and the police have now arrested two accomplices of the main accused, who is already in jail in a separate case, they said.

"The case started after the family members of a woman filed her missing person's report. Later, a woman's body was found in the Kalwa creek in Thane, following which an accidental death report (ADR) was filed and investigation was launched. However, the probe failed to move forward as the identity of the dead woman could not be established. There was no progress in the case as there were no leads," senior inspector Gorkhnath Garge said.

While investigating another woman's murder case, the Thane police's property cell officials came to know about the missing woman, whose identity was then established based on a tattoo and other features. The body was identified to be that of Mansi Bhoir, whose sister played a key role in confirming her identity, he said.

"Following this, the investigators began examining the deceased woman's call detail records (CDR), which led them to a key suspect, identified as Adil Sheikh. The probe revealed that the man was frequently in touch with Mansi before her disappearance," he added.

It later came to light that Sheikh was in the vicinity of the Kalwa creek on the night of November 4, 2023, when Bhoir's body was found there. As per the last communication between them, the victim had agreed to meet Sheikh near the Majiwada-Kalwa bridge that night, Garge said.

Describing the sequence of events, the police said that when Mansi opposed Sheikh's sexual advances during their meeting, he got angry and pushed her off the bridge. However, she got stuck on a pillar and fell unconscious, he said.

Sheikh then called his two associates - Mehboob Makdum Ali Sheikh (28) and Roopesh Shivkumar Yadav alias Sonu (23), a rickshaw driver by profession - and asked them to come to the spot to help him. The trio then pushed Mansi to death from the pillar. She drowned and was swept away by the currents. Her body was discovered some kilometres away, the police said.

The police have now taken Mehboob Sheikh and Yadav into their custody, while the main accused, Adil Sheikh, is already behind bars in a different case of attempted murder registered at the Rabodi police station, they said, adding that he is a history-sheeter with several criminal cases against him.

A case was registered on Sunday against the three accused under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 34 (common intention), he said.

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