Kalyan: Man Rapes and Murders 13-Year Girl, Wife Dumps Body
35-year-old Vishal Gawli and his wife were arrested by Thane police for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Kalyan.
In a horrific incident, the Thane Police arrested 35-year-old Vishal Gawli and his 25-year-old wife Sakshi Gawli for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Kalyan. According to the Thane Police, the unnamed 13-year-old girl went missing on Monday, 23rd December 2024. She had left her house around 4:30 pm to buy some food items but did not return. When the girl didn’t return till 7 pm, the parents started looking for her. When they couldn’t find the girl till 11 pm, they filed a kidnapping complaint at the local Kolsewadi police station. The family told the police that a man had molested their daughter in December 2023. Therefore, they suspected that man to have kidnapped their daughter but the police soon realised that he wasn’t involved. They started searching for the missing girl.
On 24th December 2024, the police found the body of a girl resembling the missing girl in the deserted area of Bapgaon, Bhiwandi. They called the missing girl’s family, who identified her. The Thane Police then sent the girl’s body for postmortem which revealed that she was brutally raped before being killed. Seeing the intensity of the crime, the Thane Police formed 8 teams to investigate the case. Initial investigation and several CCTV footage led Thane Police to Vishal. Allegedly, Vishal had kidnapped the girl from near her house on 23rd December and took her to his house, where he raped and then murdered her.
After killing the innocent girl, Vishal called Sakshi, who was in the bank at the time and threatened to leave her if she didn’t support & help him in getting rid of the body. Sakshi rushed home. She helped Vishal in packing the girl’s dead body in a bag and putting it in a rickshaw. The couple then took the bag to a deserted area of the Bapgaon, Bhiwandi and dumped the body there. One of the CCTV footage showed Vishal buying alcohol at a restaurant in Bapgaon after dumping the body. The Thane Police first located and arrested Sakshi. This led to Vishal fleeing to Buldhana.
On 25th December 2024, the Thane Police caught and arrested Vishal too, with the help of the Buldhana Police from a local salon, where he was trying to change his look to avoid being identified and arrested. According to the reports, the victim shared a good relationship with Sakshi but her family found Vishal’s behaviour weird. Therefore, because of it and her molestation in December 2023, the victim’s parents used to forbid her from visiting Vishal & Sakshi’s house. However, the victim continued to visit the couple’s house occasionally. The Thane Police also revealed that Vishal is a habitual offender. He is involved in 6 cases of which 3 cases are of sexual assault on 2 women earlier and 1 minor girl in August 2023. He was out on bail. He had married 3 times, and Sakshi was his 3rd wife.
The Thane Police are still investigating how Vishal took the victim to his house when Sakshi was away. They suspect that he killed the 13-year-old girl fearing that she would tell people about the sexual assault. The police have also seized the rickshaw used to dump the victim’s body and are checking if the rickshaw driver was involved in the crime as an accomplice. Angry with the incident, several public representatives, many social organisations and citizens of Thane held several rallies wearing black ribbons on their arms, especially outside the Kolsewadi police station demanding that Vishal be hanged for his alleged heinous crime under the leadership of former Shiv Sena functionary Mahesh. Kalyan Lok Sabha MP & son of deputy CM Eknath Shinde, Shrikant Shinde met the victim’s parents and assured them that the government will try their best to ensure that Vishal gets the death penalty.
In another rape incident, a 35-year-old man named Shailesh Rathod, who was out on bail for raping a 72-year-old woman, rapped the same old woman twice again in Bharuch, Gujarat. According to the reports, he had raped the old lady for the first time in June 2023 and was then jailed after the old woman filed a case against him. However, the man got bail after 18 months and raped the same old woman twice, first on 15th December & then on 22nd December 2024 in her farm’s hut, while being on bail.
On 15th December, Shailesh broke into the victim’s hut on her farm while she was sleeping, raped her and threatened to kill her if she told about the incident to anyone. A week later, on 22nd December, Shailesh broke into the victim’s house again, dragged her to an isolated spot on her farm, and raped her for the 2nd time. The old woman filed a complaint for rape and criminal intimidation at the local police station on 24th December 2024 after learning that Shailesh had fled the village. The 3rd rape news involves a Deaf woman. A deaf woman was allegedly raped by a man in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, after which a mob of angry people set the accused’s house on fire. According to the reports, the accused took the Deaf victim to his house on the evening of 22nd December 2024 and raped her several times. He then set the Deaf woman free the following morning (the morning of 23rd December 2024).
The victim rushed home and narrated the whole incident to her parents in sign language. The parents filed a complaint at the Saraidhela police station. They told the police that they searched for their daughter till late Sunday night but did not find her anywhere. As the news spread, locals gathered around the accused’s house by noon demanding his immediate arrest. The police pacified the angry locals by assuring them that the accused would be arrested soon. However, when the accused was not arrested by 23rd December 2024 evening, the angry mob gathered again on Monday night and set the accused house on fire. By the time the police and the fire tender teams rushed the site, the house was already reduced to ashes. The police confirmed that the accused didn’t die in the fire and that he was absconding. The police are conducting raids at various locations to arrest him. Telling you about such news makes me feel cringed, disgusted, and embarrassed. The number of rape cases is continuously rising in India. Be it a 13-year-old girl or a 72-year-old woman, a Deaf or a Hearing female, is no female safe in India?
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