Police have arrested two brothers on charges of killing a cab driver after an argument over toll payment and dumping his body near a village off the Mumbai-Pune expessway, an official said on Thursday.
The Virar police under the Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar (MBVV) police commissionerate of Thane-Palghar districts arrested the duo - Yusuf Chaus (35) and Mustaqin Chaus (25) - on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after the crime, he said.
Senior inspector of the Virar police station, Suresh Varade, said the accused had hired the cab of the victim to go to Lonavala, a popular hill station in Pune district, from Mumbai last month.
En route, a quarrel broke out over payment of highway toll following which the brothers killed the cab driver, Santosh Jha, 52, and dumped his body under a bridge near Pangoli village off the Mumbai-Pune expressway, he said.
Jha was a resident of Virar, a distant suburb of Mumbai.
The accused later drove the car to Kolhapur, around 375km from Mumbai, and abandoned it there, Varade said.
The Lonavala police had registered a case of accidental death after the recovery of the body, while their counterparts in Virar had filed a missing person case and were searching for the victim since June 17, he said.
The Virar police on Wednesday registered a case under IPC sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 34 (common intention) against the two brothers and arrested them, the inspector said.
The accused, originally from Nipani in adjoining Karnataka, were working at construction sites in Mumbai's suburb of Kandivali, he said.
The police are now trying to find out if they have criminal background, the officer said.
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