Police said after murdering his wife Lalita, Jadhav not only filed a missing person report but also accompanied the police team looking for her. An FIR was lodged against Jadhav under sections 182 (false information), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 302 (murder) of the IPC at the Lonikand police station on Sunday.

A press release issued on Monday said that on October 28 last year, Jadhav informed police that his wife Lalita was missing. A missing report was lodged and a team from Lonikand police station started looking for Lalita.

Police said Jadhav pretended to help them and accompanied the cops searching for his wife. Meanwhile, a probe revealed that Jadhav was a worker at a private company in Markal.

On the day Jadhav filed his wife’s missing report, his full day attendance was recorded in the company’s register. Police also found that Jadhav kept his mobile phone switched off for about 15 days during that period.

Police then questioned Jadhav and found his behavior suspicious. During further investigation by a police team led by senior inspector Vishwajeet Kaingade and assistant inspector Ravindra Godse, Jadhav admitted that he strangled his wife at the Mandhardevi Ghat in Wai in Satara district on October 28 and dumped her dead body in the valley.

The press release said that police went to the spot and recovered his wife’s skeleton at a 250ft deep valley at the Mandhardevi ghat. The skeleton was taken to Pune’s Sassoon hospital for post-mortem.

Police said Jadhav was unhappy as his family had forcefully gotten him married to Lalita, who was 12 years elder to him. He failed to convince her for a divorce and hence, decided to murder her.

According to police, Jadhav planned a murder on the lines of the one showed in the Bollywood movie ‘Drishyam’. He himself filed a missing person report and pretended to help the police to look for his wife to escape arrest.