Cops are presently sniffing around for clues to other crimes that follow the same pattern, on the hunch that Vijay Palande and his accomplice and kin Simrin Sood may have killed others, using the same modus operandi. The Mumbai police now have the uphill task of tracing all the existing phone contacts salvaged from Simrin and Palande’s cell phones, and crosscheck with police stations across the country to see if any of them have been reported missing.

“We suspect that Palande and Simrin might have been involved in other murders as well. So we will now trace all the names in their mobile contact list and determine if any of them have gone missing anywhere in the country,” said a police officer.u00a0On Monday night, the Amboli police officers recovered Kakkad’s severed head and parts of his chest from the Kumbharli Ghat in Chiplun, where Palande had dumped his body.

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The police have also recovered what appears to be part of an arm from the spot — but undecided over whether it belongs to an animal, they have sent the fragment for DNA testing.The deep ravines in the valley where the body was dumped have made it impossible for cops at the spot to attempt to scale it and salvage the other parts of the butchered body, in spite of roping in a local trekking group and the fire brigade.u00a0The local police officers have conducted a panchnama of the spot and submitted a report after handing over the recovered body parts to the Amboli police.

“We have recovered the body parts in the same spot where Palande had said they would be. We will now send the parts for forensic analysis to determine the DNA to confirm that they belong to Kakkad,” said PI S Shende of the Amboli police station. The police will also conduct a search at Palande’s farmhouse at Chiplun, where he had rested for two hours after the exertions of dumping the Kakkad’s body. u00a0