Rajasthan horror: Bhavnagar officer’s arrest uncovers chilling premeditated family murder; pits dug, fake suicide message failed

RAJKOT: Investigation into the discovery of a woman and her two childrens' bodies from a pit in Bhavnagar forest colony unravelled the premeditated murders allegedly carried out by her husband - assistant conservator of forest (ACF) Shailesh Khambhla - who was formally arrested on Monday.During interrogation, 40-year-old Khambhla confessed to have smothered his wife Nayana after a fight on Nov 5, and thereafter their children - nine-year-old Bhavya and 13-year-old Prutha - by suffocating them with pillows when they were asleep.

Investigators also found that the murders were a fall-out of quarrels between Khambhla and his wife Nayana over her insistence on living with him in Bhavnagar instead of Surat where she stayed with her parents.The murders look premeditated as Khambhla had instructed the forest department staff to get two pits dug on Nov 2, a week after Nayana and the kids came to his house from Surat for Diwali holidays. The chilling crime came to light after the bodies were exhumed on Nov 16.Bhavnagar SP Nitesh Pandey said that the Local Crime Branch (LCB) team including inspector AR Vala and sub-inspector PD. Zala cracked the case by scanning CCTV footages, analyzing call detail records of Nayana and Khambhla, and statements of his subordinates, neighbours and family members.

The investigation nailed Khambhla's lies that his family had gone missing, a complaint regarding which he had lodged at the Bharatnagar police station.Security guards also contradicted his claim of seeing Nayana and the children leaving in an autorickshaw. CCTV footage from the colony and bus station showed no evidence of their exit. Khambhla's CDR showed he was communicating extensively with forest department staff around the time the pits were dug.Range Forest Officer (RFO) Girish Vaniya confirmed to police that on Nov 2 Khambhla had instructed them to dig two pits near his quarter on Nov 2 for water and garbage disposal. Earth excavator operator Girish Baldaniya prepared two pits on Nov 6After Nayana died, Khambhla was scared of getting exposed before his children. He then killed them in their sleep. Thereafter, he buried the bodies one after another and covered the pit with stones, a mattress, and later soil and rubble on Nov 6.To mislead the family, he typed a message from Nayana's phone to his own to show that she was ending her life with the two children. However, investigators noticed he writing style did not match Nayana's usual texting pattern. Moreover, the message was never delivered because Khambhla failed to notice that the phone was in airplane mode.