navi MUMBAI, Nov. 23 -- Nearly 24 years after he allegedly hacked his nine-month pregnant sister-in-law to death, a 49-year-old man who had all but disappeared off the police radar has been arrested from Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune, where he had been living under a new name and a new life. Raigad Police on Thursday arrested the accused, Santosh Ganpat Rane, who had been working as a caterer in Sangvi under the alias 'Santosh Ganpat Patil'. Rane was wanted in a 2001 murder case registered at Neral police station under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Superintendent of police Aachal Dalal said the breakthrough followed months of revived technical surveillance and "meticulous groundwork". "He had vanished without a trace for more than two decades. We reopened the case file, reworked every lead and instructed the team to pursue every technical input available," Dalal said. According to the original complaint, Rane and his brother Anil lived with their families in Pohir village, Karjat. Rane, then unemployed, often quarrelled with his sister-in-law, Gulab. On February 2, 2001, Anil had left early for work at a local brick kiln. When he returned around noon, he witnessed his brother arguing heatedly with Gulab. Their mother stepped in and asked Rane to leave the house. But within minutes, police said, Rane returned with an axe. "He launched a brutal assault, inflicting deep wounds on her neck and arms," an officer from the investigating team said. Gulab, who was nine months pregnant and nearing delivery, died on the spot. Rane fled the village immediately after. The trail went cold for years until investigators conducting a fresh technical review on 20 November traced a man using Rane's photograph and details, but under a different name, in the Famous Chowk area of Sangvi. htc...