Actress fakes death to elope with boyfriend, faces arrest

Mumbai: Marathi actress Alka Punewar, who mysteriously disappeared while on her way to Uran in neighbouring Navi Mumbai for a stage show ten days ago, was traced to Chennai, where she had been staying with her boyfriend, the police said here today. The Mumbai police said that the actress, her boyfriend and their mutual friend had faked her ‘accident’ at Khopoli in Raigad district so that they could elope. Alka had left her home on 27 December for a stage show to Uran after which she was scheduled to reach Pune for another show. After the actress went missing, her car was found in a mangled state from a 700-feet deep gorge at Khopoli on December 30. The mystery was solved when the Mumbai police crime branch traced their mutual friend Sanjay Sonkar and picked him up from his Panvel residence for questioning. [caption id=“attachment_1328545” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] He allegedly confessed his role in the episode and narrated all the events that had transpired between the night of 27 December and the morning of 28 December. A Mumbai police crime branch officer said that Alka’s phone call records led them to her boyfriend Alok Paliwal, and later to Sanjay Sonkar, since a lot of calls were exchanged between them on the day that Alka went “missing”. On December 27, Alka, Alok and Sonkar first went to Kopar Khairane, where they discussed the plan, after which Alka was dropped at the CST railway station. Later, Sonkar and Paliwal went to Khopoli, and on the way, they sent a text message to Alka’s husband Sanjay from her phone, so that examination of phone call records would indicate that she was in Khopoli. The actress threw a fit after being caught by the Chennai Police reportedly refusing to return to her family in Mumbai and has been kept in a shelter in Chennai until a team from the Thane Police reaches there, the Mumbai Mirror reported. However, the reaction of her family isn’t the only thing that Punewar needs to worry about. While the Mumbai Mirror report indicated that the police would in all likelihood shut the case against her, the Thane Police has reportedly said they will take a call on whether they would book the actress, her boyfriend and accomplice for kidnapping, misleading the police and criminal conspiracy. with inputs from PTI