Actress goes missing, car found in valley

S Ahmed Ali TNN

January 3/2014. (FP)
Mumbai: Alka Punewar, a small-time Marathi actress, who was on her way to Pune for astage show, has gone missing. What has baffled her family and the police is that her mangled car was found in a valley in Khopoli on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Tuesday.
    The police are zeroing in on those who had last called Alka on her cellphone before when she went missing. The police said Alka, who worked in some Hindi movies like Bawandar and Gadar and some TV serials like Laagi Tujhse Lagan had left her Thane residence on December 27 evening to go to Uran and then Pune, where her troupe was to perform. Unknown person had called up asking if Alka reached home
Mumbai: The Kopri police in Thane on Tuesday registered a missing person’s complaint and launched a search for actress Alka Punewar based on her husband Sanjay’s complaint.
    Sanjay said, “I dropped her in our car at Thane station, from where her troupe’s driver was to pick her up on December 27. Half an hour later, she called and said the driver had come and they were leaving for Uran.’’
    At 4.30am on December 28, Sanjay received a text from Alka’s cell requesting him to send her son’s resume to an email ID and she would call later. In the afternoon, someone called Prashant rang up Punewar’s landline and asked if she had reached home. The caller told Punewar’s son Pratik she had left after an argument and was not answering her phone. He then disconnected the call. “We called up Alka but the phone kept ringing.”
    The police on December 30 told Alka’s brother Anil Mishra, who was in Nagpur, to come immediately to Khopoli as their car had met with an accident.
    The next morning, Mishra arrived in Mumbai. “In Khopoli, the local police took us to the valley, but we had to return the next morning as it was getting dark,’’ said Mishra. The next day, they only found Alka’s mangled car. Kalpana Joshi, a family friend, said, “The doors were locked, there was no trace of blood or foul smell, indicating a decomposed body, and Alka’s phone was found 100m away with the SIM and memory cards missing.’’
    The police said the eight to 10 people who had last called Alka were not responding. There were doubts about how the car fell into the valley from the opposite direction on a one-way road. When TOI called some of those people, they said they were make-up artists and hair-dressers, and disconnected the call. Kopri inspector R I Kazi said, “We have summoned two persons who called her last.”
ACTRESS GOES MISSING Alka Puneware (44) is a small-time actress who has worked in some movies and television serials. Her husband Sanjay said she was more into theatre WHAT HAPPENED
Dec 27, 2013 | Sanjay drops Alka at Thane. Alka calls Sanjay and tells him that their troupe driver had arrived
Dec 28 | Sanjay receives a text message from Alka. A person calls up Punewares’ landline number to check if Alka was at home
Dec 29 | Khopoli cops call up Alka’s brother, informing him that their car had met with an accident
Dec 30 | Sanjay, Mishra and friends go to Khopoli but have to return the next day
Dec 31 | They find the mangled car (pic) and Alka’s cell phone around 100 metres away