The sessions court today framed charges against the accused in the case related to rape and murder of a woman software engineer from Andhra Pradesh.
“The court framed charges against Chandrabhan Sanap for rape, murder and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code and he has pleaded innocence,” said his lawyer Prakash Salsingikar.
The trial may start next month, he added.
Mumbai police’s crime branch arrested 28 years old Sanap in early March, nearly two months after the murder of the 23-year-old woman who worked with TCS.
She went missing from Lokmanya Tilak terminus in suburban Kurla after arriving by train from Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of January 5 this year.
According to police, Sanap spotted her sitting alone at the railway station and offered to drop her at Andheri on his two wheeler.
He took her to an isolated spot and strangled her when she resisted his attempt to rob her. Police later claimed they suspected that the victim was raped too.
Her decomposed body was found off the Eastern Express Highway in suburban Bhandup on January 16.
The girl hailed from Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
Sanap, who worked as a railway porter here and then as a driver in Nashik, has a past criminal record. The chargesheet against him consists of statements of 76 witnesses.