Thane: Police have arrested a 21-year-old man from Maharashtra's Navi Mumbai township for allegedly killing his girlfriend around six months back, an official said. On October 10, 2023, the unidentified body of a woman was found at an isolated spot in Bhingri village of Panvel area in Navi Mumbai, senior police inspector Sunil Shinde said on Tuesday. 

A case of murder was then registered and as part of the probe, the police collected information about persons known to the woman and those residing in the area where the body was found. The police received information that a man, identified as Pandav Gorakh Jadhav @ Pandya, resident of Maldhakka slum colony in Panvel, was staying with the victim and had strangulated her to death and then fled, the official said. 

On March 29, the police got a tip that the man would come to a mall in Panvel. The police laid a trap and nabbed him when he arrived there, the official said. Following the man's interrogation, the police got to know that he and the woman consumed liquor on October 9, 2023. 

They had a quarrel over some issue and the accused allegedly strangulated the woman to death and then ran way, the official said. The accused subsequently kept moving to different places in Maharashtra and also went to Gujarat to evade arrest, he said.  

(With PTI inputs. Except for the headline, Republic has not edited the content.)