Duped of Rs 5 lakh with promises of good fortune soon to come, a 32-year-old man from Nalla Sopara allegedly clubbed an astrologer to death and tried to dispose off his body in the jungles here, police said today.
Bacchan S Thakur was apprehended in the wee hours yesterday when he was fleeing after dumping 40-year-old victim Dinesh Rambacchan Chourasia in the Shirvali jungles, Assistant Police Inspector of Virar police station P S Patil said.
An alert policeman on night patrol duty chased Thakur and later arrested him, Patil said.
The astrologer had reportedly duped Thakur of Rs 5 lakh over a period of time, predicting good future, he said.
When Thakur found the predictions to be false, he decided to kill Chourasia and attacked him fatally with rods on Saturday night, before dragging him into his car, he said.
In order to destroy evidence, Thakur drove into the jungles and threw the body there.
Chourasia’s body has been sent for postmortem and the accused has been booked under various sections of the IPC, he said.