Desk Correspondent , Mumbai - A 26-year-old engineer was brutally murdered, stuffed inside a green plastic drum, and dumped in a secluded drain in Vasai following a financial dispute with his married lover, Mumbai police confirmed. The victim, Arbaz Maqsood Ali Khan, a Mumbra resident employed with a prominent real estate developer, had gone missing on April 3 after collecting cash for his company. Investigators have arrested his lover, 25-year-old Mehajabeen Khatun Ekran Sheikh, and her brother, Tariq Sheikh, while her husband and another accomplice remain at large.

The breakthrough came after the Mumbra police traced Khan’s final mobile location to Mehajabeen’s residence in Vasai’s Bhoidapada and discovered a final bank transfer of ₹50,000 made to her just a day before he disappeared. During interrogation, Mehajabeen confessed that her relationship with Khan, which began in 2021, soured after he stopped sending her monthly funds. In retaliation, she plotted his murder, luring him to her home to demand more money. When he refused, her husband Hasan Sheikh, brother Tariq, and accomplice Mojjam Pathan tied Khan’s limbs and assaulted him with plastic pipes, inflicting fatal head injuries.

The accused subsequently packed Khan's body into a drum and disposed of it within the Valiv police station limits to destroy evidence. Following the recovery, the Mumbra police registered a case against the four accused under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), invoking sections 140 and 3(5) for kidnapping, 103(1) for murder, and 238 for destroying evidence. While two key suspects are in custody, a massive manhunt has been launched to apprehend the absconding husband and his associate.