Navi Mumbai, Jul 31 (IANS): A Panvel Court has sent Dawood M. Shaikh – the accused in the murder of a 22-year-old girl from Belapur – to police custody for seven days, an official said here on Wednesday.

Shaikh (25) who was nabbed from Gulbarga in Karnataka on July 30, and arrested for the killing of Yashashri Shinde, was produced before the Panvel Court early today which granted him a week’s police remand.

Besides murder, the police have slapped charges under the Prevention of Atrocities Against SC/ST Act against the accused, who has confessed to the crime.

The accused and victim had known each other since 2019 but the girl’s parents were against the relationship and later she also spurned him.

According to officials, the victim had gone to meet the accused in Uran where they reportedly had an altercation and he inflicted multiple stabs on her, leading to her death.

A senior officer has also denied reports in sections of the media and social networks that the victim’s body was badly mutilated by the accused and said that she died of multiple stab injuries as per the autopsy report.

The investigations have also indicated a potential ‘love triangle’ as the victim was reportedly seeing another boy which allegedly angered the accused and drove him to the crime.

Though living mostly in Karnataka, his mobile call records indicate that Shaikh had come to Navi Mumbai on July 22, and what exactly transpired between them till the girl’s murder is being probed.

The killing sparked off a huge political row with the ruling ally Bharatiya Janata Party terming it as an instance of ‘love jihad’, and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) slamming the MahaYuti for the collapse of law-and-order in the state.

Several MVA bigwigs like Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Leader of Opposition in Council Ambadas Danve, Kishori Pednekar, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and Congress leaders visited the distraught kin of the victim and assured full support in their quest for justice.

The Maharashtra State Commission for Women Chairperson Rupali Chakankar, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray’s wife Sharmila Thackeray and other leaders also met the victim’s family and consoled them, while asking the police to ensure stringent action against the accused.

Angered by the murder, Uran people have taken out protest marches in the past few days while the Shinde family has demanded the death sentence for their daughter’s killer.