mumbai

Updated: Mar 19, 2019 08:39 IST

A woman intern and a printer have been arrested by the Thane Rural police for allegedly murdering the editor of a news portal and magazine, whose body was found on Saturday.

Nityanand Pandey, 44, the victim, had been missing since March 15. His body was found under a bridge in Bhiwandi.

Police said Pandey had been sexually assaulting the woman, an intern at the news portal he ran, for two years. She had committed the murder along with Satish Mishra, 34, who used to print Pandey’s magazine, police said.

The woman and Mishra were arrested on the basis of call data records (CDR) of the intern and the victim, police said.

Sanjay Hazare, police inspector of Bhiwandi police station, said, “Over the past two years, Pandey would allegedly sexually harass the woman at the workplace and she had protested against it. He refused to give her a promotion and coaxed her to have sexual relations with him.” To stop the sexual abuse, the woman contacted Mishra and convinced him to be a part of the plan to murder Pandey, said Hazare. Police officers said Pandey owed printing dues to Mishra and was delaying payment.

Hazare said that on Friday, the duo convinced Pandey to go for a drive in his car to Uttan, Bhayander, under the pretext of showing him a sea-facing house there. But during the drive, Mishra offered Pandey a drink laced with sedatives. After Pandey became unconscious, the duo stopped the car and using a rope, strangled him to death. They dumped the body in Bhiwandi, Hazare said.