Leopard attack? No, murder: Man kills aunt, tries to cover it up; arrested after 3 months

Pune: Three months after a 51-year-old woman was suspected to have been killed by a leopard in Daund taluka of Maharashtra's Pune district, police have found that she was actually murdered by her nephew.

The police have arrested the deceased woman's nephew, Anil Dhawade, for her murder and for wrongly making it appear as an incident of animal attack, an official said.

Apart from Dhawade, the Yavat police have arrested one more person in connection with the murder of Latabai Dhawade, a resident of Kadethan village in Daund, he said.

"The woman was found dead near sugarcane farms on December 8, 2024. Owing to the injuries on her head and information given by her nephew, it was believed that the woman died in a leopard attack. However, the forest department was not convinced," he said.

During the investigation, the swabs of the woman were sent to the forensic laboratory in Nagpur. The report concluded that she did not die in an animal attack, the official said.

"After that report, we intensified the probe and it was found that Anil Dhawade and his aide allegedly killed Latabai and made it appear as a case of animal attack," senior police inspector Narayan Deshmukh of the Yavat police station said.

The area has a presence of leopards and Dhawade took advantage of this fact to cook up a story that his aunt was killed by a feline, he said.

The motive behind the murder is yet to be ascertained, he said, adding that the case is being investigated from all angles.

"The two accused have been remanded in police custody," the police official said.