THANE, May 7 -- The Shahapur police and the Local Crime Branch of the Thane rural police cracked a murder case after an unidentified man whose body was found dumped near Umbarrakhand village, located near Kasara, along the Mumbai-Nashik highway on April 30. The accused, two of them contract killers, were arrested on Monday. The deceased was identified as Ashok Sukhdev, 28, a resident of Sinnar tehsil in Nashik district. Around 11.30am on April 30, residents of the village noticed his body lying amid the roadside bushes with stab wounds, indicating a violent murder, said a police officer. A joint team of Shahapur police and Thane Local Crime Branch launched an investigation. Guided by a single clue of a tattoo on his hand which read "Deva Bhau" the police began to trace his identity. "We had very little to go on at first, but our team focused on the smallest clues - especially the tattoo. That, along with technology and public help, led us to the accused," said Suresh Manore, police inspector attached to the Thane rural LCB. Another officer said forensic analysis of the deceased, and state-wide coordination also helped them. Photographs of the body were circulated on police WhatsApp groups and crime-focused digital platforms. They learnt a missing person complaint was filed in Sinnar for Sukhdev. Finally, the police could pin him down from a video uploaded to a local online crime news portal, which showed a man matching Sukhdev's description. After narrowing down potential suspects using CCTV footage, two of them -Wasim Pathan, 32, and Rahul Gunjal, 25 - admitted to the murder. They told the police that a woman named Sheetal Fodse, a resident of Igatpuri, hired them to kill Sukhdev. Fodse was involved in an extramarital affair with Sukhdev. When he began pressuring her to marry him, she allegedly conspired with the killers to get rid of him, said the officer. The killers allegedly lured Sukhdev to a secluded location in his village and fatally stabbed him before abandoning his body on the highway....