After the missing persons’ report was filed on November 7, ASI Sodhatar, in the FIR, said that he immediately began an investigation and acquired the photos, IDs of the woman and children and sent them across to all police stationsWE KEPT looking for the missing woman and her children, but could find no trace of them. It was strange that there was no evidence of them leaving the district, there was no hint of an affair, and there appeared to be no sightings. They had just disappeared. Then, we found the unsent message,” said an investigator who looked into a case in Bhavnagar where an Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) was on Monday arrested for killing his wife and two children by asphyxiation, burying their bodies in pools of waste water and then piling them up with garbage before burying them with sand.
The Bhavnagar Police on Monday arrested 39-year-old ACF Sailesh Bachu Khambhla, a resident of Surat, for allegedly killing his wife Nayana (42), 13-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son, said Superintendent of Police Nitesh Pandey.
SP Pandey said, “The accused had admitted to having killed his wife first, then son and then daughter by smothering them with a pillow on November 5. He then weighted the bodies with stones and put them in 6-ft pits filled with water. He also put a door and a blanket over the pits and then had the pits filled up with sand.”
The FIR was registered at Bharatnagar police station on November 16, on the basis of a complaint by ASI Hiren Balu Sodhatar, on behalf of the state. Khambhla was booked under BNS sections for murder, causing disappearance of evidence, and making false statements to a public servant.Earlier, the probe began with an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) attempting to trace a woman and two children who had apparently left home while her husband was away on duty.
However, an unsent text, two holes in the ground and the family of three having “gone missing” led the police to investigate the actions of the only surviving member of this family, the Forest Officer who appeared to be frantically looking for his family members.
Search for ‘missing’ persons
At 6 pm on November 7, the police station officer (PSO) of Bhatnagar police filed a missing persons report on the basis of a complaint by Sailesh Bachu Khambhla, 39, Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) that his wife Nayana (42), daughter and son had travelled from Surat and visited him in Bhavnagar during Diwali vacation. The missing persons report states that Khambhla had gone for a field visit on November 5 and when he returned at 2 pm the same day, “all three were missing
After the missing persons’ report was filed on November 7, ASI Sodhatar, in the FIR, said that he immediately began an investigation and acquired the photos, IDs of the woman and children and sent them across to all police stations.
On November 8, he sought the Call Data Records (CDR) of Nayana’s phone, which she had allegedly left in the house.
“From the phone CDR, we also tried checking whether there were any unknown or suspicious numbers in contact with Nayana and whether there was an extramarital affair, but nothing like that came to light,” said an investigator.
The FIR stated that Sailesh Khambhla also told the police that the society watchman had seen Nayana and the two kids go somewhere by autorickshaw but during questioning, it was not clear that it was the officer’s family members who were in the vehicle.
The police said that the statements of other people in the vicinity of the forest colony quarters were also unhelpful as Nayana and the two children were virtually unknown to anyone else as they lived in Surat with Sailesh’s family – his parents and younger brother – and had only come to visit him during the Diwali vacation of the children.When CCTV footage also did not help in the case, ASI Sodhatar said he checked the communications between Sailesh Khambhla and his wife, and then decided to speak to Nayana’s sister. This was regarding an unsent WhatsApp message from Nayana’s phone to that of Sailesh, that said she was leaving the house with the children and money.
Inspector NH Qureshi of Bharatnagar police told The Indian Express, “The unsent message from Nayana’s phone to that of Sailesh, lying unsent as her phone was on flight mode stated that she had been harassed enough and that she was leaving and that nobody should go looking for her or she would not remain alive.”
This message had been typed on the phone at 10:18 am on November 5. However, the police now believe that Sailesh himself typed this message to make it seem as if Nayana had left the home of her own accord.
This, along with other messages between the husband and wife, came across as odd to the investigators. Inspector tor Qureshi said, “We acquired several past messages written by both Nayana and Sailesh. Usually, they would type the Gujarati language in Latin script (english) in their communication. We found that the language and use of certain words with the emphasis on dialect, did not match that of Nayana.”