Man uses cobra to stage his death in elaborate life insurance scam

Ground Report | New Delhi: Man uses cobra; A 54-year-old man is accused of using a cobra snake as a weapon and masquerading as his own death. For this, he killed a person who looked like him. According to Indian Express, the motive for this murder and farce was a life insurance policy of $ 5 million, taken from the American insurance company.

The matter came to light when the insurance company sent an investigator to investigate. Last week accused Prabhakar Bhimaji Waghchaure and four of his associates were arrested. According to the police, Waghchaure has lived in America for the last 20 years. In January this year, he returned to India and started living in Rajur village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.

On 22 April, Ahmednagar police received information about Waghchaure's death from the local government hospital. When a constable went to the hospital, Praveen, who identified himself as Waghchaure's nephew, identified the body. Harshad Lahamge, another person from Rajur also identified the body. After receiving the primary medical report, the body was handed over to the nephew and the last rites were performed. The cause of death in the report was said to be a snake bite.

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Man uses cobra

The chains of the case started opening one by one when the insurance company sought more information from the officials regarding Waghchaure's insurance claim. As part of the process, the police reached Waghchaure in Rajur. There a neighbor told the policemen that he had not heard of any snakebite incident but had seen an ambulance coming to Waghchaure's house at the time of the incident. When the police wanted to talk to Praveen again, Lahamge said that he had died of Kovid.

When the police could not locate any of Waghchaure's relatives, they started searching the phone records. This revealed that Waghchaure was not only alive, but he had identified his own dead body as Praveen. Waghchaure was soon taken into custody after the disclosure. Ahmednagar Superintendent of Police Manoj Patil said on Monday, "In 2017 Waghchaure had made a false claim of his wife's death for the sum insured. Due to this, the life insurance company had made a false claim against Waghchaure.

Mr. Waghchaure took Anap to a secluded place, where he found a companion, who forced the cobra to bite him with his toe. After Anap's death, the body was taken to Mr. Waghchaure's residence, where an ambulance was called. He then presented the body as his nephew Praveen for identification. After receiving the death certificate, he approached a US-based insurance firm to claim compensation on behalf of his family.

thousands of deaths every year

A report of the World Health Organization says that in India in the last two decades, more than one million people have died in India due to snake bites. According to the report, between 2000 and 2019, 1.2 million people died due to snake bites, ie 58,000 people on an average annually. More than half of these people were between 30 and 69 years old.

More than 70 percent of the people who died due to snake bites occurred in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. Such incidents have decreased after 2014. The World Health Organization aims to halve snakebite deaths worldwide by 2030. India is the biggest challenge for him in achieving this goal.

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