Forest Officer's Suspicious Behavior Leads to Grisly Discovery
In a shocking case that has stunned Gujarat, a forest department officer has been arrested for the brutal murder of his wife and two children in Bhavnagar. Assistant Conservator of Forests Sailesh Bachu Khambhla, 39, allegedly smothered his family to death before disposing of their bodies in specially dug pits behind his residential quarters.
The Bhavnagar Police made the arrest on Monday after a meticulous investigation that began as a missing persons case but quickly turned into a murder probe. The victims have been identified as Nayana (42), her 13-year-old daughter, and 9-year-old son, who had visited Khambhla from their Surat home during the Diwali vacation.
The Disappearance That Raised Suspicions
The case unfolded on November 7 when Khambhla filed a missing persons report at Bharatnagar police station. He claimed that after returning from a field visit at 2 pm on November 5, he found his family missing. The officer told police that a society watchman had supposedly seen his wife and children leaving by autorickshaw.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Hiren Balu Sodhatar immediately launched an investigation, circulating photographs and identification documents of the missing family across all police stations. The police also obtained Call Data Records from Nayana's phone, which she had allegedly left behind at home.
"We kept looking for the missing woman and her children, but could find no trace of them," revealed an investigator involved in the case. "It was strange that there was no evidence of them leaving the district, no hint of an affair, and no sightings. They had just disappeared."
The Crucial Unsent Message
The investigation took a dramatic turn when police discovered an unsent WhatsApp message on Nayana's phone. The message, typed at 10:18 am on November 5 but never sent because the phone was on flight mode, stated that Nayana was leaving with the children and money after being "harassed enough."
Inspector NH Qureshi of Bharatnagar police explained the suspicious nature of this message. "We acquired several past messages written by both Nayana and Sailesh. Usually, they would type the Gujarati language in Latin script in their communication. We found that the language and use of certain words with the emphasis on dialect did not match that of Nayana."
Police now believe that Khambhla himself typed this message to create the illusion that his wife had left voluntarily. The timing and circumstances made investigators increasingly suspicious of the forest officer's story.
The Telltale Pits Behind Quarters
As suspicion grew around Khambhla, police uncovered another crucial piece of evidence - two recently dug and filled pits behind his residential quarters in the forest colony. Investigation revealed that on November 2, on Khambhla's orders, two holes approximately 6 feet deep had been dug for "water" and "garbage" disposal.
More significantly, on November 6 - just a day after the family went missing and a day before Khambhla reported them missing - the pits were filled with sand under the officer's direct supervision. Witnesses stated that Khambhla prevented anyone from approaching the holes by claiming a snake was spotted nearby.
Bhavnagar Superintendent of Police Nitesh Pandey stated, "When we took the statement of Khambhla's subordinates, they said that he had made them fill up the holes on November 6. Additionally, he stopped anyone from approaching the holes by claiming that a snake was spotted. All this was suspicious timing."
Grisly Discovery and Confession
On November 16, acting on orders from Deputy Superintendent of Police R R Singhal, police excavated the two pits in the presence of witnesses. From the 6.5-foot and 6-foot deep holes, they recovered three bodies that were later identified as Nayana and her two children.
According to SP Pandey, "The accused had admitted to having killed his wife first, then son and then daughter by smothering them with a pillow on November 5. He then weighted the bodies with stones and put them in 6-ft pits filled with water. He also put a door and a blanket over the pits and then had the pits filled up with sand."
The post-mortem was conducted at Bhavnagar Civil Hospital, and a dog squad investigation led police to the living room where the murders allegedly occurred.
Family Dispute Emerges as Likely Motive
Investigators have identified a family dispute as the probable motive behind the triple murder. According to Inspector Qureshi, "Nayana wanted to live with Sailesh but he wanted her to stay with his parents in Surat. He had told Nayana to manage till after January next year, when his younger brother was slated to be married. He asked her to take care of his parents till his brother's wife could do so instead, but Nayana did not agree. This apparently angered him."
Khambhla, who had been serving as Assistant Conservator of Forests in Bhavnagar's Social Forestry Division for nearly a year, was arrested from his Surat home and brought to Bhavnagar. He has been charged under BNS sections for murder, causing disappearance of evidence, and making false statements to a public servant.
Forest department officials noted that no duty-related problems had been observed in Khambhla's work prior to this incident. The residential quarters where the crime occurred are located on a 50-bigha patch of land with sparse housing, providing the isolation that may have facilitated the crime.
